11 


\ii^fwy^i:}il:\,!:M-^(^S:mimMii^ 


salms  of  the  Social  Life 
BCleland  B.  McAfee 


BS  1430  .Mi5  1917 
McAfee,  Cleland  Boyd,  1866 
1944 . 

Psalms  of  the  social  life 


y 


EVERYDAY  LIFE  SERIES     "        ^  ^^  ^^'^^^]^ 


/ 


Psalms  of  the  Social  Life 


CLELAND  BOYD  McAFEE 

Author  of  "The  Greatest  English  Classic,'* 
*' Mosaic    Law    in    Modern    Life,''     Etc. 


124  East  28th  Street,  New  York 
1917 


EVERYDAY  LIFE  SERIES 

The  Christian  According  to  Paul:  John  T.  Paris 
Psalms  of  the  Social  Life  :  Cleland  B.  McAfee 
The  Many  Sided  David  :  Philip  E.  Howard 
Meeting  the  Master:  Ozora  S.  Davis 
Under  the  Highest  Leadership:  John  Douglas  Adam 
*  Other  volumes  to  be  announced  later. 


Copyright,  1916,  by 

The  International  Committee  of 

Young   Men's   Christian   Associations 


The  Bible  Text  used  In  this  volume  is  taken-  from  the  American  Standard 
Edition  of  the  Revised  Bible,  copyright,  1901,  by  Thomas  Nelson  &  Sons,  and 
is  used  by  permission. 


:  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Songs  of  a  Thousand  Years i 

JI.  The  Solitary  Mood i6 

III.  The  Personal  Mood 29 

IV.  Self  in  the  Social  Group 42 

V.  Self  Against  the  Social  Group 55 

VI.  Self  for  the  Social  Group 70 

VII.  The  Challenge  of  the  Social  Order 84 

VIII.  The  Group  within  the  Social  Order 97 

IX.  God  in  the  Social  Order iii 

X.  Sin  and  the  Social  Order 126 

XI.  The  Spirit  of  Praise  Within -the  Social  Order  141 

XII.  The  Spirit  of  Prayer  in  the  Social  Order.  . .  156 

XIII.  The  Forecast  of  a  Future  Social  Order 171 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Songs  of  a  Thousand  Years 

The  book  of  the  Psalms  is  the  best  known  book  in  the 
Bible.  That  is  because  it  is  the  most  complete  expression 
of  human  life  in  literature.  It  ranges  all  moods.  No  man 
can  seek  the  expression  of  any  mood  without  finding  terms 
for  it  here.  From  the  depths  of  despair  he  can  cry  for  help; 
in  rage  at  injustice,  in  the  pain  of  betrayal  by  friends,  in 
doubt  of  God's  goodness,  in  assurance  of  his  unfailing  love, 
feeling  himself  wrong  or  wronged,  seeing  the  world  as  going 
to  ruin  or  seeing  it  as  working  out  a  plan  of  good,  wanting 
inspiration  to  serve  his  fellowmen  better  or  wanting  refuge 
from  their  demands,  fearing  the  future  or  hoping  for  it,  in 
depression  or  in  exultation-^whatever  mood  any  man  cares 
to  express  is  here.  Calvin  says  :  "All  griefs,  sorrows,  fears, 
doubts,  hopes,  cares,  and  anxieties,  in  short  all  those  tumultu- 
ous agitations  wherewith  the  minds  of  men  are  wont  to  be 
tossed — the  Holy  Spirit  hath  here  represented  to  the  life." 
It  is  a  literature  of  insight. 

DAILY  READINGS 

First  Week,  First  Day 

Bless  Jehovah,  O  my  soul; 

And  all  that  is  within  me,  bless  his  holy  name. 

Bless  Jehovah,  O  my  soul. 

And  forget  not  all  his  benefits: 

Who  forgiveth  all  thine  iniquities; 

Who  healeth  all  thy  diseases; 

Who  redeemeth  thy  life  from  destruction; 

Who    crowneth    thee    with    lovingkindness    and    tender 

mercies; 
Who  satisfieth  thy  desire  with  good  things. 
So  that  thy  youth  is  renewed  like  the  eagle. 
Jehovah  executeth  righteous  acts, 
And  judgments  for  all  that  are  oppressed. 

— Psalm  103:  1-6. 


[1-2]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

This  is  a  psalm  in  the  mood  of  personal  exultation.  It  is 
a  mood  not  brought  about  by  absence  of  disturbing  condi- 
tions. Anybody  can  be  exuUant  when  there  is  no  reason  for 
being  otherwise.  This  mood  is  caused  by  becoming  sure  of 
the  goodness  that  is  in  the  world  and  in  personal  life  be- 
cause God  is  good.  A  laconic  man  was  asked  what  is  the 
chief  requisite  for  making  a  pessimist,  and  he  answered,  "A 
poor  memory,"  It  takes  a  deal  of  forgetting  to  feel  forsaken 
in  the  world.  The  popular  song  about  counting  our  blessings 
suggests  how  impossible  it  is  to  do  so.  Imagine  naming  them 
"one  by  one"!  We  may  not  be  able  to  Hst  them  in  just  the 
terms  of  this  psalm,  we  may  not  have  had  these  experiences 
at  all;  but  the  habit  of  tracing  the  blessings  of  life  to  their 
first  cause  in  God  is  the  best  way  of  making  this  mood  of 
personal  exultation  permanent.  There  are  men  who  have 
a  sense  of  eternal  youth,  feeling  their  power  renewed  con- 
stantly like  the  eagle,  which  every  year,  as  this  psalmist 
watched  him,  gained  new  plumage  for  his  wings  in  place  of 
the  old.  And  such  joy  deepens  when  it  is  made  social  and 
we  come  to  see  that  God's  care  covers  all  who  need  him,  that 
he  has  no  favorites,  that  he  does  injustice  to  no  one.  We 
say  that  misery  loves  company;  it  is  not  always  true.  But 
is  it  not  always  true  that  joy  loves  company?  Is  our  mood 
ever  worthy  until  we  want  the  world  to  have  such  blessings 
as  we  have  ourselves? 


First  Week,  Second  Day 

Praise  ye  Jehovah. 

Praise,  O  ye  servants  of  Jehovah, 

Praise  the  name  of  Jehovah. 

Blessed  be  the  name  of  Jehovah 

From  this  time  forth  and  for  evermore. 

From  the  rising  of  the  sun  unto  the  going  down  of  the 

same 
Jehovah's  name  is  to  be  praised. 
Jehovah  is  high  above  all  nations, 
And  his  glory  above  the  heavens. 
Who  is  like  unto  Jehovah  our  God, 
That  hath  his  seat  on  high, 
That  humbleth  himself  to  behold 
The  things  that  are  in  heaven  and  in  the  earth? 

— Psalm  113: 1-6. 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  YEARS      [I-3] 

This  is  an  instance  of  the  mood  of  national  exultation 
like  many  other  psalms.  Notice  the  change  of  pronouns. 
Yesterday  they  were  all  singular  number,  though  extending 
at  the  last  to  all  who  have  similar  experiences.  Today  they 
are  plural.  It  is  a  social  mood,  in  which  the  whole  body  of 
the  servants  of  God  is  included.  It  is  a  wide  mood  also, 
covering  all  times  and  places  :  from  the  farthest  east  where 
the  sun  rises,  to  the  farthest  west  where  it  sets,  there  is 
cause  to  praise  God.  The  whole  world  looks  bright  in  such 
a  mood.  It  is  good  to  be  alive.  And  it  is  impossible  to  be 
narrow  at  such  a  time.  One  cannot,  claim  God  or  his  bless- 
ings as  special  possessions  in  which  others  cannot  share. 
God  is  above  all  nations.  His  gifts  are  for  all  of  them. 
Yet  he  is  not  so  high  that  he  is  not  also  near.  Some  of  the 
great  people  whom  we  know  are  as  haughty  as  they  are 
great.  God's  greatness  is  humble  also.  We  are  always  in 
danger  of  going  to  one  extreme  or  the  other  about  God. 
Sometimes  we  make  him  so  great  and  far  away  that  we 
cannot  love  him..  Sometimes  we  make  him  so  near  that 
we  cannot  worship  him.  He  becomes  so  much  the  king  that 
he  is  not  the  world's  burden  bearer ;  or  else  he  becomes  so 
much  the  burden  bearer  that  he  is  no  longer  king.  The 
national  thought  needs  to  be  kept  between  the  two  extremes. 
But  if  the  social  mood  is  to  recognize  his  true  place,  it  must 
first  be  recognized  in  the  personal  mood  of  each  of  us. 

First  Week,  Third  Day 

Be  merciful  unto  me,  O  Lord; 

For  unto  thee  do  I  cry  all  the  day  long. 

Rejoice  the  soul  of  thy  servant; 

For  unto  thee,  O  Lord,  do  I  lift  up  my  soul.  .  .  . 

O  God,  the  proud  are  risen  up  against  me, 

And   a   company   of   violent   men   have    sought   after   my 

soul,  .  .  . 
Show  me  a  token  for  good. 

That  they  who  hate  me  may  see  it,  and  be  put  to  shame. 
Because  thou,  Jehovah,  hast  helped  me,  and  comforted  me. 

— Psalm  86:3,  4,  14,  17. 

Today  the  mood  is  one  of  personal  depression.  Most  of 
■us  know  the  mood.  And  the  first  thing  to  do  when  it  comes 
is  to  find  out  what  caused  it.     Sometimes  it  is  purely  phys- 


[1-4]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

ical,  an  overstrain  which  can  be  made  good  by  sleep  or  rest; 
the  world  looks  better  through  rested  eyes.  At  other  times 
the  mood  of  depression  is  caused  by  something  wrong  in 
the  life,  and  there  is  no  cure  for  it  except  in  diversion, 
which  is  cowardly,  or  in  correction.  There  are  bad  hours 
which  we  have  a  chance  to  turn  into  good  ones  by  being 
honest  with  ourselves  and  putting  the  disturbing  element 
out  of  our  lives.  We  only  fix  ourselves  in  unworthy  ways 
when  we  try  to  change  the  current  of  our  thought  in  order 
to  be  happy  while  we  keep  the  wrong.  Only  a  clean  life  can 
be  permanently  a  happy  one.  In  the  case  of  this  psalm  the 
cause  of  the  depression  is  in  the  social  environment.  The 
man  feels  himself  out  of  harmony  with  it.  In  a  university 
paper  of  1916  was  the  declaration  that  on  the  campus  which 
it  represented  it  was  not  considered  altogether  good  form 
to  be  clean  in  mouth  and  life.  That  was  an  exaggeration, 
but  most  men  know  that  it  is  hard  to  be  one's  best  self 
under  some  familiar  social  conditions.  The  cure  for  the 
depression  that  comes  is  in  keeping  alive  one's  sense  of  the 
larger  environment  where  God  is  the  ruling  factor.  We 
belong  to  our  social  group,  but  above  and  beyond  that  we 
belong  to  God. 

First  Week,  Fourth  Day 

How  long,   O   Jehovah?  wilt  thou  be  angry  for  ever? 

Shall  thy  jealousy  burn  like  fire? 

Pour  out  thy  wrath  upon  the  nations  that  know  thee  not. 

And  upon  the  kingdoms  that  call  not  upon  thy  name. 

For  they  have  devoured  Jacob, 

And  laid  waste  his  habitation. 

Remember  not  against  us  the  iniquities  of  our  forefathers: 

Let  thy  tender  mercies  speedily  meet  us; 

For  we  are  brought  very  low. 

Help  us,   O   God  of  our  salvation,  for  the  glory  of  thy 

name; 
And  deliver  us,  and  forgive  our  sins,  for  thy  name's  sake. 
Wherefore  should  the  nations  say,  Where  is  their  God? 
Let  the  avenging  of  the  blood  of  thy  servants  which  is 

shed 
Be  known  among  the  nations  in  our  sight. 

— Psalm   79:5-10. 

Plainly    we    have    here    the    mood    of    national    depression. 

4 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  YEARS      [I-5] 

The  whole  social  group  which  means  most  to  one  seems  to 
be  awry.  It  may  be  one's  fraternity  which  is  running  down 
in  caliber  and  conduct  or  is  being  unfairly  treated.  It  may 
be  a  whole  campus  spirit  that  is  changing  for  the  worse, 
losses  of  leading  men  in  faculty  or  student  body  whose 
going  will  take  strength  out  of  the  institution  which  it  can- 
not well  spare,  unjust  treatment  in  intercollegiate  relations. 
Or  it  may  be  a  community  losing  its  fiber,  or  a  nation  going 
mad  after  wrong  things  or  imperiled  by  enemies  which  it 
seems  unable  to  resist.  Men  who  keep  in  right  relation  to 
their  own  social  groups  will  understand  the  mood.  Thought- 
ful men  feel  it  even  more  keenly  than  personal  depression. 
But  note  the  moral  cleanness  of  it.  The  first  thought  is  of 
the  presence  of  causes  within  the  group  itself.  Iniquities 
cannot  be  disregarded  in  a  moral  order.  Honest  men  do 
not  want  them  overlooked.  If  the  nation  has  sinned,  if  the 
college  has  been  unfair,  if  the  fraternity  has  taken  an  unfair 
advantage,  clean  men  do  not  want  the  moral  order  to  act  as 
though  that  were  not  so.  But  when  fair  requital  has  been 
made,  they  want  relief  and  victory  again.  And  the  reason 
they  want  it  is  not  selfish  but  moral.  God  and  the  large 
values  involved  in  relation  to  him  are  concerned  in  the  out- 
come. It  is  a  great  thing  when  we  keep  our  social  group 
so  right  that  we  can  ask  for  its  prosperity  for  the  honor  of 
God  and  when  our  depression  over  its  failure  is  rooted  in 
our  feeling  that  moral  issues  are  being  confused.  We  may 
not  personally  amount  to  much,  but  God  amounts  to  a  vast 
deal. 

First  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Mine  eye  wasteth  away  by  reason  of  affliction: 

I  have  called  daily  upon  thee,  O  Jehovah; 

I  have  spread  forth  my  hands  unto  thee. 

Wilt  thou  show  wonders  to  the  dead? 

Shall  they  that  are  deceased  arise  and  praise  thee? 

Shall  thy  lovingkindness  be  declared  in  the  grave? 

Or  thy  faithfulness  in  Destruction? 

Shall  thy  wonders  be  known  in  the  dark? 

And  thy  righteousness  in  the  land  of  forgetfulness? 

— Psalm  88:  9-12. 

Here  is  a  mood  in  which  dread  of  tJie  future  predo^ninates. 

5 


[1-6]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

It  is  not  sudden,  but  has  evidently  been  with  the  writer  a 
long  time.  He  has  tried  to  throw  it  off  but  it  will  not  go. 
Nothing  changes  the  situation.  He  has  prayed  day  by  day^ 
but  the  case  grows  worse  instead  of  better,  'Ahead,  every- 
thing is  dark.  There  was  no  help  for  him  in  the  Christian 
idea  of  the  future,  which  is  such  that  Professor  William 
Adams  Brown  can  call  his  book  on  the  subject,  "The  Chris- 
tian Hope."  Christ  had  not  yet  brought  life  and  immortality 
to  light  (H  Tim.  i  :  lo),  and  it  was  not  possible  yet  to  be 
so  triumphant  as  Paul  and  to  say  that  whether  we  wake  or 
sleep  we  live  with  Christ  (I  Thess.  5:10).  But  there  are 
times  even  for  us  who  have  all  that  richer  hope  when  it 
grows  dim.  There  are  interests  of  this  life  which  we  want 
to  serve.  An  old  Christian  leader  used  to  be  asked  if  he  was 
not  eager  to  go  to  heaven,  and  he  frankly  replied  that  he 
was  not,  because  there  was  so  much  yet  to  be  done  and  seen 
here  in  the  earth.  God  surely  means  us  to  want  to  be 
ht^re  and  to  do  our  bit  m  the  work  of  the  world.  Prospect 
of  not  being  able  to  do  it,  threat  of  failing  health  or 
powers,  hindrances  which  we  cannot  control,  come  over  us 
like  a  shadow  of  gloom.  It  is  hard  to  keep  up  courage. 
Calvin  thinks  the  mood  of  this  psalm  is  inexcusable  because 
we  must  leave  all  such  things  to  God,  letting  him  take  us 
or  leave  us  as  he  thinks  best.  That  latter  part  is  true  and 
yet  he  must  understand  the  feeling  of  dread  that  can  come 
over  us.  What  we  need  to  do  is  to  keep  it  clear  to  our- 
selves that  the  reason  we  want  a  better  future  is  for  the 
sake  of  the  service  we  can  render,  not  for  mere  selfish 
pleasure.  It  is  by  that  path  that  God  leads  us  out  into 
renewed  courage. 

First  Week,  Sixth  Day 

All  thy  works  shall  give  thanks  unto  thee,  O  Jehovah; 
And  thy  saints  shall  bless  thee. 
They  shall  speak  of  the  glory  of  thy  kingdom, 
And  talk  of  thy  power; 

To  make  known  to  the  sons  of  men  his  mighty  acts, 
And  the  glory  of  the  majesty  of  his  kingdom. 
Thy  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom, 
And  thy  dominion  endureth  throughout  all  generations. 

— Psalm  145:10-13. 

Here    the    dominating    mood    is    of    hope    for    the   future^ 

6 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  YEARS      [I-7] 

specially  hope  for  the  social  order,  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
the  earth.  Though  the  whole  book  of  Psalms  is  called  a 
book  of  praise  by  its  Hebrew  name,  this  is  the  only  psalm 
which  is  expressly  called  one  of  praise  in  its  title.  It  had 
a  notable  place  in  Hebrew  thought.  In  the  Talmud  it  is  said 
that  every  one  who  repeats  this  psalm  thrice  a  day  may  be 
sure  that  he  is  a  child  of  the  world  to  come.  It  gives  two 
reasons :  first,  because  the  psalm  is  alphabetical  and  there- 
fore covers  the  whole  range  of  human  language ;  and 
secondly,  because  the  psalm  celebrates  God's  care  for  all  his 
creatures.  But  actually  the  psalm  has  no  magic,  except  in 
its  expressing  the  confidence  which  we  have  the  right  to 
feel  about  the  future.  Everything  ahead  looks  bright  in  this 
mood.  Tasks  may  be  difficult,  but  there  will  be  power  for 
them  when  it  is  needed.  Evil  forces  may  seem  dominant 
for  a  time,  but  it  is  only  seeming.  The  real  conquering 
forces  of  the  social  order  belong  to  God  and  they  are  at 
work  in  the  world.     That  is  the  tone  of  the  psalm. 

It  is  characteristic  of  this  mood,  as  of  every  mood  of  joy, 
that  we  want  to  pass  it  on  to  others ;  we  want  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  cause  of  it.  Ruskin  speaks  of  the  peculiarity 
of  a  great  truth,  that  when  one  really  becomes  aware  of  it 
he  feels  an  irresistible  desire  to  tell  other  people  about  it. 
When  once  we  have  seen  the  glory  of  a  kingdom  set  up  in 
this  world  that  is  on  its  way  to  conquest,  we  do  not  treat  it 
as  a  secret  but  as  a  bit  of  the  best  news.  The  social  order 
is  not  doomed  except  as  it  is  bad.  A  good  social  order  is 
on  the  way.  We  are  sure  of  it  because  we  are  sure  of  God. 
We  call  it  a  social  order;  it  is  his  kingdom. 

First  Week,  Seventh  Day 

Jehovah  is  my  strength  and  song; 

And  he  is  becomte  my  salvation. 

The  voice  of  rejoicing  and  salvation  is  in  the  tents  of  the 

righteous: 
The  right  hand  of  Jehovah  doeth  valiantly. 
The  right  hand  of  Jehovah  is  exalted: 
The  right  hand  of  Jehovah  doeth  valiantly.  .  .  . 
Thou  art  my  God,  and  I  will  give  thanks  unto  thee: 
Thou  art  my  God,  I  will  exalt  thee. 
Oh  give  thanks  unto  Jehovah;  for  he  is  good; 
For  his  lovingkindness  endureth  for  ever. 

— Psalm  118:  14-16,  28,  29. 


ll-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Here  all  the  moods  of  the  week  blend  in  a  strong  assur- 
ance of  the  fellowship  between  God  and  men.  It  is  right 
to  think  of  God,  not  merely  in  terms  of  the  universe  but 
in  terms  of  human  life  and  need.  If  we  read  Tennyson's 
"Higher  Pantheism"  in  the  light  of  his  other  writing  we  have 
no  fear  of  saying : 
"The   sun,   the   moon,   the   stars,   the   seas,   the   hills   and   the 

plains — 
Are  not  these,  O  Soul,  the  Vision  of  Him  who  reigns? 

Speak  to  Him  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit  with  Spirit  can 

meet — 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet. 

God  is  law,  say  the  wise;  O  Soul,  and  let  us  rejoice, 
For  if  He  thunder  by  law  the  thunder  is  yet  His  voice. 

Law  is  God,  say  some ;  no  God  at  all,  says  the  fool, 

For  all  we  have  power  to  see  is  a  straight  staff  bent  in  a  pool. 

And  the  ear  of  man  cannot  hear,  and  the  eye  of  man  cannot 

see ; 
But  if  we  could  see  and  hear,  this  Vision — were  it  not  He?" 

God  is  not  the  universe,  yet  the  whole  universe  helps  us  to 
know  him  and  to  know  that  we  are  of  concern  to  him. 
Notice  the  four  great  needs  which  he  supplies  constantly  in 
human  life.  He  brings  strength  when  men  face  the  big  tasks 
of  life  or  the  long  pull  at  the  commonplace  tasks;  he  brings 
cheer  when  men  are  depressed  or  heavy  hearted,  teaching 
•them  to  sing  instead  of  sigh;  he  guides  men  in  their  search 
for  truth  and  away  from  the  paths  of  falsehood,  giving 
them  a  life  law  by  which  they  may  walk;  he  brings  to  men 
salvation  when  there  settles  down  on  them  the  sense  of  loss 
and  ruin,  when  moral  or  social  forces  t^o  strong  for  them 
seem  to  have  them  in  their  grip.  All  this  God  is  in  his 
fellowship  with  men. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

The  psalms  were  born  out  of  the  actual  life  of  men  and 
were  meant  to  be  used  in  that  life.  Historical  events  sug- 
gested most  of  them,  though  few  can  be  definitely  located. 
The   songs    themselves    came    out    of    hearts    that   burned   in 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  YEARS      [I-c] 

the  presence  of  evenly.  Professor  McFadyen  speaks  of  the 
genius  the  Hebrews  had  "for.  seeing  the  universal  in  the 
particular."  They  had  that  genius,  but  it  does  not  preclude 
their  having  wrought  these  songs  t»ut  with  pain  and  effort. 
It  is  a  mistaken  idea  that  inspiration  is  a  substitute  for  work. 
Rather,  it  is  an  impetus  to  work.  The  Talmud  says  "a 
cithern  used  to  hang  above  David's  bed ;  and  when  midnight 
came,  the  north  wind  blew  among  the  strings,  so  that  they 
sounded  of.  themselves ;  and  forthwith  he  arose  and  busied 
himself  with  the  Torah — the  law — until  the  pillar  of  dawn 
ascended."  So  it'  tries  to  impress  that  his  songs  are  the 
fruit  of  toil.  These  psalms  are  inspired ;  they  show  it  in 
the  fact  that  only  so  could  their  writers  have  deak  so 
soundly  and  completely  with  human  life.  They  came  out  of 
an  earlier  period,  but  they  fit  all  periods. 


The  psalms  fit  all  periods  in  passing  by  the  merely  inci- 
dental, and  getting  down  to  the  abiding  elements  in  a  condi- 
tion. "Personal  religion  is  the  same  in  all  ages,"  as  Fred- 
erick W.  Robertson  said ;  "the  deeps  of  our  humanity  remain 
unruffled  by  the  storms  that  change  the'  surface."  The  51st 
psalm,  "written  3000  years  ago,  might  have  been  w^ritten 
yesterda}' — describes  the  vicissitudes  of  spiritual  life  in  an 
Englishman  as  truly  as  in  a  Jew."  That  is  characteristic  of 
great  thinking.  You  have  heard  two  men  discussing  an  inci- 
dent or  a  problem  of  common  life.  One  handles  it  by  little 
details,  sees  it  as  an  isolated  event,  without  roots  in  any 
larger  condition ;  the  other  deals  with  it  on  principle  and 
finds  the  roots  of  it  in  wider  phases  of  life.  The  method  of 
one  is  to  take  a  case  at  a  time  and  devise  means  of  correcting 
a  wrong  here  and  a  failure  there ;  the  method  of  the  other 
is  to  get  at  the  causes  and  deal  with  a  single  situation  as 
part  of  a  whole.  Politicians  arc  always  concerned  to  get 
around  this  or  that  obstacle ;  statesmen  are  concerned  to  get 
principles  of  national  life  into  action.  The  psalms  take  the 
wide  view,  without  missing  any  of  the  value  of  the  narrow 
view.  Recent  years  have  emphasized  the  importance  of  the 
historical  elements  and  background  of  Scripture,  but  the 
value  of  the  psalms  depends  less  upon  their  dates  than 
does   that  of   other   parts  of   the   Bible,   because,   while  they 


[I-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

doubtless  rose  out  of  particular  historical  events  and  some 
of  their  details  would  be  best  understood  in  the  light  of  these 
events,  yet  they  go  far  deeper  than  any  events  in  their  mean^ 
ing.  Mrs.  Browning  says  that  poets  are  the  only  truthtellers 
left  to  God,  by  which  she  meant  simply  that  they  get  down 
under  the  mere  accidents  of  events  to  their  meaning,  which 
is  always  permanent.  The  death  of  Arthur  Hallam  was  the 
occasion  for  writing  "In  Memoriam,"  but  the  application  of 
the  poem  covers  far  more  than  that  event.  A  shepherd  boy 
might  have  written  the  23rd  psalm,  but  what  he  wrote  covers 
a  far  wider  field  than  a  shepherd's  life.  The  133rd  psalm  may 
have  been  written  to  celebrate  the  coronation  of  David,  but  it 
meaijs  a  far  larger  thing  than  the  coming  together  of  divided 
tribes. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  psalms  have  such  great 
social  value.  The  social  order  with  which  the  writers  were 
familiar  was  widely  different  from  our  own.  The  enemies 
which  they  had  to  meet  were  not  like  ours.  And  it  is  notable 
that  the  particular  enemies  who  may  have  been  in  mind  are 
never  named.  Who  were  the  oppressors  (59:1-4),  and  who 
were  the  scoffers  who  sneered  at  distress  (22:6,  7),  and 
who  was  the  familiar  friend  who  betrayed  (41:9;  55:12, 
13),  are  purely  matters  of  detail.  We  have  no  way  of  find- 
ing out  at  this  distance.  These  men  are  not  concerned  over 
petty  troubles ;  they  are  thinking  in  terms  of  principles.  The 
name  of  the  man  who  betrayed  them  is  not  important ;  the 
thing  that  counts  is  that  friendship  is  betrayed,  that  fraternity 
brothers  throw  one  down,  that  fellow  church  members  turn 
one  out.  That  is  no  matter  of  one  time  or  another ;  it  is 
a  matter  of  any  time.  It  does  not  make  much  difference 
who  sneers  at  an  honest  effort  to  stand  up  for  what  one 
thinks  is  right  (123:3,  4)  ;  it  is  the  fact  of  being  sneered  at 
that  counts.  Whether  it  is  a  pious  man  toiling  toward  Jeru- 
salem on  a  pilgrimage,  or  a  young  fellow  taking  a  stand 
against  some  bad  campus  custom  and  being  laughed  at  for 
it,  or  a  girl  practicing  her  religion  in  a  group  that  laughs 
at  religion,  is  only  a  matter  of  detail;  the  thing  is  the  same  at 
the  heart  of  it.  The  same  pluck,  the  same  courage,  the 
same  renewal  of  purpose  by  keeping  God  in  mind,  must  get 
into  each  case.  As  Kenyon  Cox  says  about  art :  "To  paint  a 
simple,  everyday  occurrence,  a  part  of  the  routine  of  life, 
and  by  one's  treatment  of  it  to  reveal  its  deeper  implications, 

10 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  Y£ARS      [I-c] 

and  to  make  manifest  the  dignity  and  romance  of  the  life  of 
which  it  forms  a  part — that  is  what  Millet  did  for  the  tillers 
of  the  soil  and  what  Winslow  Homer  does  for  the  fisherman 
and  the  sailor."  The  psalmists  do  it  for  all  the  moods  of 
life. 

So  with  all  national  interests.  Great  national  events  always 
tend  to  start  men  singing  or  praying,  and  the  psalms  are  both 
songs  and  prayers.  A  war  brings  victory  and  songs  or 
.defeat  and  prayer.  Both  imply  a  deepened  sense  of  soli- 
darity, a  stronger  feeling  of  need  for  God  and  for  one's  fel- 
lows. Early  in  the  European  war  the  story  was  told  of  the 
word  of  a  farm  toiler  in  England  that  he  had  changed  all 
his  thought  of  his  employer  since  the  lads  of  both  of  them 
went  to  war,  because  the  employer  had  seemed  so  much  more 
kind  and  human.  People  always  draw  together  in  great 
joy  or  in  great  sorrow.  The  deeper  emotions  are  social. 
This  would  be  magnified  in  the  case  of  a  people  like  the 
Hebrews  to  whom  "the  religious  unit  has  been  not  the  indi- 
vidual but  the  nation."  Many  psalms  which  are  in  per- 
sonal terms  are  quite  certainly  meant  nationally.  The  writers 
felt  for  the  whole  nation.  What  it  suffered,  they  seemed  to 
suffer.  When  it  conquered,  their  hearts  swelled.  They  be- 
came  identified    with   their    social   group. 

No  amount  of  personal  exultation  can  take  the  place  of 
that  social  sense.  No  man  has  gotten  out  of  his  college 
training  what  it  could  have  given  him  if  he  has  not  learned 
to  think  of  himself  as  an  element  in  a  much  larger  whole, 
and  to  feel  pain  and  joy  which  strike  the  whole  of  which 
he  is  part.  Being  comfortable  or  being  disturbed  just  on 
one's  own  account  is  natural  enough,  but  never  worth}^  for 
long  at  a  time.  No  wonder  a  jreligion  of  service  and  sacri- 
fice like  the  one  we  profess  has  laid  such  firm  hold  on  these 
songs.  The  Church  could  dispense  with  its  gospels  almost 
as  easily  as  with  the  psalms. 

II 

The  psalms  are  true  to  life  in  that  few  of  them  are  domi- 
nated throughout  by  any  one  mood.  Mountains  and  valleys, 
heights  and  depths,  are  on  the  same  landscape  of  the  soul. 
We  move  on  the  same  level,  high  or  low,  for  only  short 
journeys.     When  we  say  of  a  man  that  he  is  always  on  the 

II 


[I-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

heights,  always  joyous,  always  cheerful,  we  are  saying 
either  a  very  poor  or  a  very  fine  thing  of  him.  It  is  very 
poor  if  he  is  the  kind  of  man  who  persists  in  throwing  off 
trouble  or  difficulty  and  takes  the  bright,  easy  way  all  the 
while.  The  philosophy  of  life  that  refuses  to  admit  the 
presence  of  things  that  disturb  is  not  valuable  enough  to 
make  one  a  helpful  factor  in  real  life.  But  we  say  a  fine 
thing  if  by  it  we  mean  that  the  man  has  schooled  himself  to 
face  fairly  and  yet  bravely  anything  that  comes,  knowing 
that  only  so  can  he  serve  the  need  of  the  world.  That  is,  a 
man  can  shut  his  e3^es  and  be  cheerful,  which  is  cheap ;  or 
he  can  open  his  eyes  and  be  sure  of  God  and  so  be  cheer- 
ful, which  is  courageous.  With  most  men  moods  are  recur- 
rent as  they  are  in  the  psalms.  Moods  of  confidence  and 
depression,  of  trust  and  of  question,  of  assurance  and  doubt, 
come  one  after  the  other  there  just  as  they  do  in  life. 

In  some  of  them  the  same  mood  is  recurrent.  In  the  42nd 
and  43rd  psalms,  originally  one,  there  is  a  refrain,  "Why  art 
thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul?  Hope  thou  in  God."  It  comes 
not  once  but  three  times.  The  writer's  spirit  rose,  but  the 
old  gloom  settled  down  again  on  him.  The  man  has  a 
peculiar  temperament  who  does  not  know  what  that  means. 
Psychologists  have  a  term  for  it — perseveration,  the  tendency 
of  a  particular  phrase  or  melody  to  persist  in  the  mind  or  for 
a  mood  to  reassert  itself  in  spite  of  efforts  to  throw  it  off. 
The  books  generally  say  that  such  perseveration  is  strongest 
in  the  feeble-minded,  but  it  appears  often  in  times  when  a 
strong  mind  is  jaded.  Heroic  efforts  to  cast  it  off  are  suc- 
cessful for  a  time ;  change  of  mental  direction,  introduction 
of  a  new  line  of  thought,  will  help.  But  sometimes  it 
recurs  in  spite  of  such  effort.  There  is  no  corrective,  except 
a  powerful  corrective  thought  on  which  the  mind  can  dwell, 
as  in  these  two  psalms.  Perowne  says  that  the  90th  psalm  is 
like  the  pillar  which  led  Israel  through  the  desert — it  is  both 
dark  and  light.  Its  darkness  comes  from  looking  at  men  ;  its 
light  from  looking  at  God.  So  it  is  with  the  psalms  that  fore- 
tell a  Messiah ;  some  of  their  expressions  are  of  the  mood 
which  applies  to  Christ,  others  are  impossible  of  that  appHca- 
tion. 

Ill 

Two  dominating  lines  in  the  psalms  are  those  of  assurance 

12 


I 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  YEARS      [I-c] 

of  God  and  of  the  social  group  and  order.  The  two  unite 
in  the  sense  of  God's  law  as  the  final  social  bond.  Society 
is  not  a  human  device  or  a  whim  of  men.  It  is  part  of  the 
plan  of  God  (68:6)  and  he  is  concerned  with  the  affairs  of 
men.  The  longest  psalm  (119)  has  the  peculiarity  that  with- 
out exception — unless  possibly  vs.  121,  122 — each  verse  refers 
in  some  term  to  the  law  or  the  will  of  God,  claiming  per- 
sonal allegiance  to  it  or  promising  obedience  to  it,  and 
basing  every  word  of  hope  on  it.  Several  of  the  verses 
may  have  national  reference  (119:23,  161)  but  many  take 
account  of  a  social  group  of  friends  or  foes.  And  the 
general  attitude  toward  that  law  is  one  of  clear-cut  devotion. 
There  is  no  dread  of  it  nor  wish  to  escape  it.  The  writers 
love  it  (119:97)  and  delight  in  it  (119:16,  47).  Their  hope 
of  the  social  order  is  bound  up  in  God  and  not  in  princes 
or  other  men  (118:8,  9),  and  all  hope  for  prosperity  is  in 
his  blessing  (106:4,  5)-  They  explain  the  movements  of 
history  by  the  relation  of  the  acts  of  men  to  the  wall  of  God 
(44:1-3;  78  and  106  throughout).  As  we  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  see  (Chapter  XIII)  there  are  few  details  of  the  new 
social  order  given,  but  the  broad  lines  of  righteousness  and 
peace  and  prosperity  make  the  psalms  available  and  inspiring 
for  any  man  who  wants  to  help  toward  the  better  order 
which  the  Christian  hope  expects. 

In  the  light  of  their  utter  truth  to  the  human  heart  and 
of  their  expression  of  its  abiding  moods,  all  disputing  about 
particular  authors  and  occasions  of  writing  must  be  kept 
secondary.  The  psalms  cover  a  thousand  years  of  human 
feeling  and  desire.  Fragments,  possibly  one  psalm  entire 
(90),  come  to  us  from  the  time  before  David,  and  several 
from  his  own  time,  the  eleventh  century  before  Christ.  The 
latest  show  signs  of  the  period  after  the  exile  and  some 
scholars  think  a  few  may  have  been  written  in  the  second 
century  before  Christ.  Those  are  important  details  for  crit- 
ical study  of  the  book,  but  they  have  no  direct  bearing  on 
our  purpose  in  this  study.  Here  are  the  songs  of  a  thou- 
sand years,  not  issuing  in  a  continuous  current  through  that 
whole  period,  but  scattered  down  the  way  around  certain 
singing  periods,  as  in  the  time  of  David,  of  Hezekiah,  of  the 
return  from  the  exile.  For  the  most  part  they  were  prob- 
ably collected  for  use  in  the  temple  described  in  Ezra  3,  a 
hymnbook  for  the  services  of  instruction  and  worship.     Like 

13 


[I-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

all  hymnbooks,  there  are  many  writers  and  many  moods. 
No  one  ought  to  condemn  himself  if  he  is  not  always  ready 
to  respond  to  every  psalm  and  the  mood  it  expresses.  There 
are  times  for  one  hymn  and  times  when  it  would  be  very 
much  out  of  place;  yet  the  hymn  is  true  to  human  need. 
Life  is  too  complex  to  be  shut  down  to  a  few  expressions. 
This  great  song  book  has  in  it  some  songs  which  are  only 
once  in  a  while  needed,  but  at  those  times  the  songs  must  be 
available  or  the  book  would  fail  a  seeking  spirit. 

IV 

Perhaps  it  is  only  fair  to  stop  for  a  word  about  a  group 
of  psalms  which  are  sometimes  said  to  have  no  place  in 
the  Christian  life.  They  are  called  the  imprecatory  psalms, 
or  psalms  of  cursing — all  or  part  of  psalms  35,  58,  59,  69,  83, 
I09)  '^?>7-  Professor  McFadyen  gathers  up  the  word  of  most 
of  the  writers  on  the  subject  in  reminding  us  of  these  four 
facts  about  them :  i.  They  are  not  the  spiteful  expression  of 
personal  enmity.  2.  It  is  the  cause  of  God  that  is  at  stake; 
the  prayer  is  that  God  may  be  avenged  rather  than  that  any 
personal  injury  be  made  good.  3.  The  men  on  whom  the 
curses  are  to  fall  are  guilty  of  cruelty  and  immorality;  they 
are  downright  bad  men,  who  slay  the  fatherless  and  widows 
(94:6),  not  mere  personal  enemies  with  whom  the  writers 
have  fallen  out.  4..  Confusion  of  such  wicked  men  was  a 
necessary  postulate  of  the  writers'  faith  in  God.  If  good 
men  were  defeated  and  the  wicked  were  to  triumph  without 
interference,  God  would  then  be  defeated,  and  these  men 
had  a  passion  for  the  moral  order.  There  could  be  no  hope 
for  a  sound  social  order  if  moral  order  was  not  maintained. 

To  this  can  be  added  the  question  whether  it  is  not  possible 
to  become  soft  in  the  effort  to  be  sweet.  Most  of  us  do  not 
dare  use  the  imprecatory  element  in  the  psalms  because  we 
cannot  trust  our  spirits.  We  grow  personal  and  vindictive. 
In  so  far  as  these  psalms  may  have  that  element,  they  are 
not  Christian,  and  they  may  well  be  in  the  book  as  a  revela- 
tion of  a  human  mood  which  is  just  as  real  as  the  best  mood 
of  life.  But  that  element  need  not  be  marked  in  them.  It  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  take  such  high,  fine  views  of  the  moral 
order  that  for  the  sake  of  bad  men  as  well  as  good  men 
he   can   ask  nothing  better   than   its   vindication.     Even   the 

14 


THE  SONGS  OF  A  THOUSAND  YEARS       [I-c] 

bitterest  curse  of  all — "happy  shall  he  be,  that  taketh  and 
dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the  rock"  (137:9) — is  at  its 
worst  only  a  return  to  cruel  Babylon  of  the  treatment  which 
it  had  itself  given  to  others.  It  is  no  gratuitous  curse.  It  is 
a  rough  plea  for  the  equalizing  of  the  moral  order.  There  is 
no  group  of  any  character  which  does  not  have  limits  on  the 
kind  of  misconduct  it  will  allow.  Any  of  them  will  cut  oflf 
a  member  who  persists  in  passing  that  limit.  The  moral  order 
must  surely  be  as  sound  as  that.  There  comes  a  time  when 
it  must  cut  off  men  who  persist  in  outraging  it. 

These  psalms  seem  reasonable  enough  when  certain  evils 
come  to  light.  They  get  their  meaning  in  the  social  order. 
The  badness  of  a  bad  deed  is  not  confined  to  the  man  who 
committed  it.  The  whole  group  has  to  share  it.  As  our 
sense  of  social  unity  develops,  we  find  it  harder  to  be 
patient  with  a  man  who  wrongs  the  order  and  tries  to  be 
blithe  about  it.  It  makes  no  possible  difference  to  us  per- 
sonall3\  but  it  does  make  a  difference  to  us  morall3^ 

But  there  is.  not  much  of  imprecation  in  the  psalms.  For 
the  most  part  they  express  the  moods  of  men  who  live  a 
daily  life  of  need  and  who  mean  to  help  where  they  can  to 
get  God's  will  done,  who  feel  themselves  bound  up  with 
other  lives  and  look  forward  to  the  correction  of  all  kinds 
of  social  evils  and  the  triumph  of  all  right  social  purposes. 
It  is  the  study  of  some  of  these  moods  and  of  these  social 
factors  as  the}^  api^ear  in  these  songs  of  a  thousand  years 
that  concerns  us  now. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Study  the  psychology  of  the  fact  that  all  wars  or  similar 
strains  on  the  spirit  of  a  nation  bring  certain  songs  into 
popularity.     What  is  the  social  meaning  involved  in  it  ? 

Value  of  songs  in  teaching  religious  truth.  Can  you  trace 
the  origin  of  the  fundamental  things  you  believe  to  direct 
or  to  indirect  teaching?  How  much  have  the  hymns  j^ou 
have  sung  contributed  to  what  you  believe? 

In  your  observation,  is  the  attitude  of  men  toward  evil 
conditions  generally  so  vigorous  as  that  of  the  writers  of 
these  imprecatory  psalms? 

15 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Solitary  Mood 

DAILY  READINGS 

Second  Week,  First  Day 

I  cry  with  my  voice  unto  Jehovah; 

With  my  voice  unto  Jehovah  do  I  make  supplication. 

I  pour  out  my  complaint  before  him; 

I   show  before  him  my  trouble. 

When  my  spirit  was  overwhelmed  within  me, 

Thou  knewest  my  path. 

In  the  way  wherein  I  walk 

Have  they  hidden  a  snare  for  me. 

Look  on  my  right  hand  and  see; 

For  there  is  no  man  that  knoweth  me: 

Refuge  hath  failed  me; 

No  man  careth  for  my  soul.  .  .  . 

Bring  my  soul  out  of  prison, 

That  I  may  give  thanks  unto  thy  name: 

The  righteous  shall  compass  me  about; 

For  thou  wilt  deal  bountifully  with  me. 

— Psalm  142:1-4,  7. 

According  to  the  heading  of  this  psalm,  it  was  written  in 
a  cave  at  a  time  of  great  distress  v/hen  David  was  fleeing 
from  Saul.  He  felt  himself  utterly  solitary.  About  the 
hardest  thing  a  man  has  to  face  is  that  he  does  not  count 
for  anybody.  Everybody  wants  to  be  of  concern  to  some 
other  people,  and  it  is  a  dark  hour  when  a  man  feels  that 
no  otie  really  cares  what  happens  to  him.  It  is  even  darker 
when  he  has  to  admit  that  those  who  do  think  of  him  are 
thinking  more  of  themselves  and  what  they  can  get  out  of 
him.  It  is  a  bad  mood,  one  in  which  it  is  necessary  for  us 
to  take  ourselves  firmly  in  hand.  Even  if  the  facts  are  as 
they  look  to  us,  it  is  still  true  that  we  do  count  to  God  and 

16       . 


THE  SOLITARY  MOOD  [11-2] 

that  other  people  ought  to  count  to  us.  Is  it  not  possible 
that  some  one  near  us  is  actually  thinking  this  very  same 
thing  about  himself?  If  he  is,  it  is  our  business  to  make 
his  thought  a  mistake  by  showing  in  our  manner  and  spirit 
that  we  care.  The  quickest  cure  for  loneliness  is  the  effort 
to  cure  a  case  of  it  in  some  one  else. 

Second  Week,  Second  Day 

The  sense  of  things  lost  out  of  life  often  makes  for  soli- 
tariness. To  waken  one  day  to  the  fact  that  we  are  not  so 
fine  as  we  used  to  be  in  spirit  or  in  life,  no  matter  how  much 
we  have  advanced  in  other  ways,  is  depressing  to  us.  This 
42nd  psalm  came  from  a  man  who  felt  himself  banished  from 
the  things  that  had  once  meant  most  to  him.  Such  a  loss 
may  come  from  the  fault  of  other  people  or  it  may  be  one's 
own  act. 

As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks, 

So  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God. 

My  soul  thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God: 

When  shall  I  come  and  appear  before  God? 

My  tears  have  been  my  food  day  and  night. 

While  they  continually  say  unto  me,  Where  is  thy  God? 

These  things  I  remember,  and  pour  out  my  soul  within  me. 

How  I  went  with  the  throng,  and  led  them  to  the  house  of 

God, 
With  the  voice  of  joy  and  praise,  a  multitude  keeping  holy 

day. 
Why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul? 
And  why  art  thou  disquieted  within  me? 
Hope  thou  in  God;  for  I  shall  yet  praise  him 
For  the  help  of  his  countenance. 

—Psalm  42:  1-5. 

Many  a  college  senior,  while  he  laughs  at  the  crude  enthu- 
siasms of  the  freshman,  knows  down  in  his  heart  that  he 
has  lost  something  good  out  of  his  life  in  the  years  of  his 
course..  He  has  made  great  gains,  of  course,  but  he  has  left 
behind  some  values  which  he  wishes  he  could  recover.  Think 
over  some  of  the  better  things  that  can  be  lost  in  college. 
When  the  experiences  of  the  past  are  finer  than  those  of 
the  present,  any  of  us  must  grow  thoughtful  about  himself. 
And   it   is   all   the   more   important    when    we    find    ourselves 

17 


[II-3]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

among  people  without  those  memories,  who  are  contemptu- 
ous about  our  losses  and  make  light  of  the  higher  level  from 
which  we  have  slipped  away.  Of  one  fact  we  are  never  to 
lose  hold:  it  is  always  possible  to  face  forward  again  by 
facing  upward.  We  can  challenge  our  own  souls  to  remember 
that  God  still  has  high  levels  on  which  we  are  to  walk ;  the 
future  under  his  guidance  is  to  be  better  than  the  past,  no 
matter   zvhat    the    present    may    be. 

Second  Week,  Third  Day 

Robert  Browning  wanted  men  to  remember  him  as  one 
who  had  kept  sure  of  God.  Here  are  two  experiences  which 
either  shake  one's  assurance  of  God  or  deepen  it:  desertion 
by  those  on  whom  one  has  depended,  and  the  feeling  of  sus- 
picion and  falsehood  in  the  atmosphere.  The  Arabs  have  a 
saying :  "God  could  not  be  everywhere,  so  He  made  mothers." 
A  better  way  is  to  say  that  God  is  everywhere  and  has  made 
mothers  to  keep  us  sure  of  it.  Yet  even  these  may  fail,  and 
if  not  these,  then  others  who  have  been  our  mainstay.  The 
men  on  whose  cheer  and  encouragement  we  have  depended 
fail  us ;  they  are  busy  or  they  are  fallible ;  but  their  failure 
leaves   us  solitary. 

When  my  father  and  my  mother  forsake  me, 

Then  Jehovah  will  take  me  up. 

Teach  rrle  thy  way,  O  Jehovah; 

And  lead  me  in  a  plain  path, 

Because  of  mine  enemies. 

Deliver  me  not  over  unto  the  will  of  mine  adversaries: 

For  false  witnesses  are  risen  up  against  me. 

And  such  as  breathe  out  cruelty. 

I  had  fainted,  unless  I  had  believed  to  see  the  goodness 

of  Jehovah 
In  the  land  of  the  living. 
Wait  for  Jehovah: 

Be  strong,  and  let  thy  heart  take  courage; 
Yea,  wait  thou  for  Jehovah. 

— Psalm  27:10-14. 

Sometimes  the  loneliness  deepens  as  we  find  the  air  charged 
with  suspicion;  the  very  breath  of  men  is  cruel.  What  can 
we  do?     M^e  can  keep  going  without  fainting.     That  is  the 

18 


THE  SOLITARY  MOOD  [II-4] 

very  knack  of  brave  living.  Waiting  is  hard,  but  we  are 
equal  to  it.  Many  things  clear  up  with  time  and  we  can 
hold  stead}''  in  the  expectation  of  the  ruling  of  God.  Per- 
haps Ave  can  learn  to  talk  less  about  our  troubles  to  other 
people  and  more  about  them  to  God.  This  will  help  to  make 
us  feel  less  solitary. 

Second  Week,  Fourth  Day 

Oh  how  great  is  thy  goodness, 

Which  thou  hast  laid  up  for  them  that  fear  thee, 

Which  thou  hast  wrought  for  them  that  take  refuge  in 

thee, 
Before  the  sons  of  men! 
In  the  covert  of  thy  presence  wilt  thou  hide  them  from 

the  plottings  of  man: 
Thou  wilt  keep  them  secretly  in  a  paviliooi  from  the  strife 

of  tongues. 
Blessed  be  Jehovah; 
For  he  hath  showed  me  his  marvellous  lovingkindness  in 

a  strong  city. 
As  for  me,  I  said  in  my  haste, 
I  am  cut  off  from  before  thine  eyes: 

Nevertheless  thou  heardest  the  voice  of  my  supplications, 
When  I  cried  unto  thee. 

— Psalm  31 :  19-22. 

That  is  characteristic  of  moods  of  depression :  they  tend 
to  hasty  judgments,  to  sweeping  generalizations  of  evil.  The 
writer  of  the  ii6th  psalm  said  in  his  haste  that  all  men  are 
liars.  In  our  cooler,  clearer  moods  we  know  that  we  are 
not  cut  off  from  before  God's  eyes  and  that  all  men  are  not 
liars.  When  we  are  depressed,  downcast,  solitary,  we  look 
out  badly  on  the  world.  At  such  times  we  need  to  guard 
our  judgments  with  special  care.  After  a  defeat  in  debate 
or  a  failure  of  any  sort  we  are  not  to  allow  ourselves  to 
form  sweepingly  adverse  opinions.  Indeed,  it  is  important 
that  any  adverse  judgment  should  be  deliberate  and  long  con- 
sidered. The  long  view  is  the  fair  one.  It  shows  the  good- 
ness of  God.  That  is  a  striking  figure  in  our  passage  for 
the  day  which  speaks  of  his  goodness  as  "laid  up"  or  stored 
up  in  supply  for  them  that  fear  him,  but  as  "wrought"  for 
those  who  take  refuge  in  him.     God  is  willing  to  do  a  great 

19 


[II-5]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

deal  for  us  which  he  is  given  no  chance  to  do.  He  does  not 
promise  to  keep  us  today  from  evil  tongues,  but  to  steady  our 
hearts.  He  may  not  give  us  friends  at  once,  but  he  is  sure 
to  be  friendly  to  us  himself.  Whatever  happens  to  us  today, 
let  us  see  to  it  that  we  do  not  fall  into  pessimism  and  adverse 
judgments  about  God  and  our  fellov^  men.  "God  is  not  dis- 
couraged," and  we  need  not  be. 

Second  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Sing  unto  God,  sing  praises  to  his  name: 

Cast  up  a  highw^ay  for  him  that  rideth  through  the  deserts; 

His  name  is  Jehovah;  and  exult  ye  before  him. 

A  father  of  the  fatherless,  and  a  judge  of  the  widows, 

Is  God  in  his  holy  habitation. 

God  setteth  the  solitary  in  families: 

He  bringeth  out  the  prisoners  into  prosperity; 

But  the  rebellious  dwell  in  a  parched  land. 

— Psalm  68:  4-6. 

This  is  a  bit  from  a  long  psalm  which  it  would  do  us  good 
to  read  throughout.  It  moves  through  many  moods  from 
the  heights  to  the  depths.  The  keynote  of  this  little  bit 
and  of  much  else  in  the  psalm  is  that  verse  about  God  setting 
the  solitary  in  families.  The  social  group  is  God's  plan,  not 
a  mere  human  device.  No  man  can  get  into  the  world 
except  in  a  social  group  of  at  least  three — himself,  his  father, 
and  his  mother.  In  this  deepest  biological  sense  the  soli- 
tary are  set  in  families.  No  man  of  us  has  been  able  to  get 
on  as  far  as  we  have  in  life  except  by  the  cooperation  of 
social  forces.  We  may  feel  solitar}^,  but  we  actually  are  not 
solitary  or  we  could  not  exist.  God  does  not  mean  any  man 
to  remain  in  the  solitary  mood.  He  is  to  find  his  group. 
Even  in  the  desert  he  is  to  help  cast  up  a  highway  for  God. 
But  highways  always  mean  a  social  order.  Where  there  are 
few  people  the  roads  are  poor ;  as  people  increase  roads 
improve.  Fine  highways  m.ean  deepening  social  conscious- 
ness. 

It  takes  the  group  to  get  anything  done.  Chronic  rebels 
always  dwell  in  parched  places.  Sometimes  we  pride  our- 
selves on  being  able  to  criticize  social  movements  and  not 
being  caught  in  mistaken  plans.  The  fact  is  we  had  better 
be   fooled   a  hundred  times   than   fail  to  take   our  places   in 

20 


THE  SOLITARY  MOOD  [II-6] 

the  social  order  which  needs  us.  Pride  in  the  solitary  mood 
is  a  far  worse  mistake  than  occurs  in  any  social  plan.  God 
means  us  today  to  get  into  the  movements  that  belong  to 
our  group,  curing  our  solitariness  by  our  service  of  the 
whole.    Have  we  the  grit  to  do  it, tin  spite  of  our  mood? 

Second  Week,  Sixth  Day 

My  soul,  wait  thou  in  silence  ^or  God  only; 

For  my  expectation  is  from  him. 

He  only  is  my  rock  and  my  salvation: 

He  is  my  high  tower;  I  shall  not  be  moved. 

With  God  is  my  salvation  and  my  glory: 

The  rock  of  my  strength,   and  my  refuge,  is  in  God. 

Trust  in  him  at  all  times,  ye  people; 

Pour  out  your  heart  before  him: 

God  is  a  refuge  for  us. 

— Psalm  62 :  5-8. 

Here  again  is  that  difficult  duty  of  waiting,  only  this  time 
it  is  to  be  -waiting  in  silence.  Yesterday  was  the  plea  to 
get  into  the  task  and  do  our  share.  There  come  times  when 
we  cannot  do  it,  though  the  fault  is  not  our  own.  We  simply 
have  to  wait.  Some  of  us  realize  this  only  when  we  are 
laid  aside  by  sickness  or  when  things  get  so  complicated  that 
there  is  no  end  by  which  we  can  lay  hold  to  untangle  them. 
It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  there  are  some  people 
whose  whole  lives  are  lived  under  just  such  limitations.  The 
deepest  dark  of  the  solitary  mood  often  is  that  nothing  better 
seems  in  prospect.  If  there  were  something  to  look  for- 
ward to — !  But  far  as  we  can  see  it  all  looks  the  same. 
Most  business  moves  forward  on  "expectations."  So  do  most 
lives.  When  expectation  fails,  it  takes  hard  thinking  to  keep 
courage  up. 

After  all,  one  of  the  surest  cures  for  solitariness  of  a  bad 
sort  is  getting  a  sense  of  bigger  and  more  abiding  realities 
than  men  can  furnish.  Napoleon  said  to  his  generals,  "I 
beg  you,  gentlemen,  plan  by  larger  maps."  Here  at  hand 
is  the  cure  for  much  loneliness.  God  .furnishes  the  larger 
environment  of  the  soul.  When  we  can  do  the  thing  that 
needs  to  be  done,  we  ought  to  do  it,  but  when  we  have  to 
wait,  it  is  not  for  common  human  forces  to  work  out  their 
result,  it  is  for  God.    "The  battle  is  not  yours  but  Jehovah's." 

21 


[11-7]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

The  only  thing  that  at  the  last  insures  stability  for  the  soul^ 
so  that  it  is  not  moved,  is  its  finding  God  a  tower. 

Second  Week,  Seventh  Day 

I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  mountains: 

From  whence  shall  my  help  come? 

My  help  cometh  from  Jehovah, 

Who  made  heaven  and  earth. 

He  will  not  suffer  thy  foot  to  be  moved: 

He  that  keepeth  thee  will  not  slumber. 

Behold,  he  that  keepeth  Israel 

Will  neither  slumber  nor  sleep. 

Jehovah  is  thy  keeper: 

Jehovah  is  thy  shade  upon  thy  right  hand. 

The  sun  shall  not  smite  thee  by  day. 

Nor  the  moon  by  night. 

Jehovah  will  keep  thee  from  all  evil; 

He  will  keep  thy  soul. 

Jehovah  will  keep  thy  going  out  and  thy  coming  in 

From  this  time  forth  and  for  evermore. 

— Psalm  121. 

This  is  about  the  pluckiest  psalm  in  the  whole  collection. 
Notice  the  verbs — only  one  in  the  past  tense,  the  one  that 
tells  that  God  "made  heaven  and  earth."  All  the  rest  are 
present  (five)  or  future  (nine).  It  closes  with  the  farthest 
possible  look  into  the  future  and  an  exultant  assurance 
of  what  will  be  true  then.  The  man  who  wrote  it  was  not 
holding  steady  because  of  what  God  had  already  done,  but 
because  of  what  he  was  sure  God  was  doing  for  him  at 
that  moment  and  what  he  was  sure  God  would  be  doing 
for  him  at  the  next  moment.  The  argument  from  the  past 
is  a  strong  one,  but  it  does  not  take  the  place  of  these  other 
assurances.  We  want  the  kind  of  thing  that  helps  us  today 
and  will  help  us  tomorrow  when  we  meet  conditions  which 
we  cannot  foresee.  We  need  a  "present  help"  (46:1),  One 
who  is  "nigh  unto  all  them  that  call  upon  him"  (145:18; 
Deut.  4:7). 

This  assurance  helps  to  hold  us  steady  in  complicated 
experiences.  No  man  on  the  basis  of  sheer  personal  expe- 
rience can  say  that  he  knows  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  them  that  love  God  (Rom.  8:28)  ;  yet  we  can 
all  claim  the  right  to  say  it.    We  know  it  on  broader  grounds 

22 


THE  SOLITARY  MOOD  [II-c] 

than  our  little  narrow  experience ;  we  know  it  in  the  nature 
of  the  case.  Such -a  God  as  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  can  be  trusted  never  to  sleep  and  never  to  let  the 
forces  of  the.  universe  ruin  those  who  give  themselves  to  him. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

The  solitary  mood  is  not  always  a  bad  one,  nor  one  to  be 
too  quickly  escaped.  In  so  far  as  it  is  merely  being  alone 
it  may  have  its  large  values.  There  are  lessons  of  life  that 
are  best  learned  in  the  solitary  places.  Moses  met  God  in 
the  desert  and  there  received  his  commission  to  deliver 
Israel.  Jesus  went  into  desert  places  several  times  during 
his  ministry  for  the  renewal  of  the  relations  with  God  which 
were  so  necessary  in  his  life.  Paul  went  to  Arabia  after  his 
conversion  to  get  his  new  point  of  view  cleared  and  to  adjust 
his  thinking  to  it  more  fully.  It  was  on  the  island  of  Patmos 
that  John  had  his  vision.  We  are  to  be  pitied  when  we 
cannot  bear  to  be  alone.  Sometimes  God  cannot  get  at  us 
because  of  the  throng  of  men.  We  have  to  be  still  to  know 
that  he  is   God    (46:10). 

But  a  set  mood  of  solitariness  is  not  good.  If  it  is  forced 
on  us  and  we  feel  alone  because  nothing  else  is  permitted 
us,  that  is  depressing.  If  we  choose  it  and  are  solitary 
because  we  have  come  to  like  it.  that  is  bad,  for  it  is  taking 
us  from  the  place  in  the  social  group  which  is  certainly  in 
God's  plan  for  us.  We  are  not  meant  to  be  solitary,  even  if 
zve  want  to  be.  And  we  are  not  meant  to  be  solitary  even  if 
we  feel  we  cannot  help  being  so.  There  are  causes  of  the 
mood  and  cures  of  it. 


Solitariness  itself  is  a  sense  of  isolation  from  the  group 
with  a  longing  for  admission  to  it.  It  is  a  sense  of  lack  of 
fellowship,  a  feeling  of  unimportance.  Sometimes  we  rebel 
over  it,  blaming  others  for  neglect  and  indifference,  leading 
us  to  self-pity,  one  of  our  least  worthy  emotions.  And 
sometimes  we  count  it  entirely  right  that  we  should  be  left 
out,  finding  the  cause  in  our  own  deficiencies  and  failures, 
leading  us  to  self-depreciation,  which  makes  any  appeal  to  us 
for    effective    service   peculiarly    difficult.      Either    of    those 

23 


[II-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

reactions  on  the  mood  of  solitariness  is  bad.  The  desire  to 
be  worth  while  is  inherent.  Something  is  wrong  when  we 
come  to  feel  that  we  are  nobody  in  particular.  One  of  the 
psalmists  spoke  of  himself  as  being  "forgotten  as  a  dead 
man  out  of  mind"  (31  :  12).  Walking  around  among  men 
and  feeling  that  way  is  solitariness  of  a  bad  sort.  Fellow- 
ship is  our  duty  as  well  as  our  right.  There  ought  to  be 
something  in  the  social  group  that  calls  for  us  or  else  some- 
thing in  ourselves  that  challenges  the  group  to  let  us  in. 
Being  on  a  college  campus  and  not  being  in  the  college  life 
argues  fault  somewhere.  Being  in  a  church  with  no  sense 
of  unity  with  it  proves  that  somebody  is  wrong.  We  are 
socially  constructed,  and  we  can  no  more  take  our  place  in 
life,  indifferent  to  that  fact,  than  we  could  take  our  place 
as  one-handed  men  when  we  have  two  hands,  or  as  tongue- 
less  men  when  we  can  speak. 

The  cause  may  not  lie  in  ourselves  but  in  the  failure  of 
others.  The  41st  psalm  and  the  55th  both  tell  the  story  of 
the  depression  that  came  to  the  writer  when  he  found  him- 
self deserted  by  his  "own  familiar  friend,"  in  whom  he 
had  trusted,  who  had  eaten  his  bread  and  now  had  "lifted 
his  heel"  against  him — as  though  a  college  student  should 
find  that  his  own  fraternity  or  his  special  crowd  had  played 
him  false  or  were  throwing  him  down  in  some  important 
matter.  He  would  feel  cut  off  from  all  that  was  familiar 
to  him.  The  whole  experience  would  challenge  the  best  in 
him  to  hold  steady  and  fair  minded. 

The  mood  of  solitariness  is  often  deepened  b}^  memory. 
Soldiers  in  foreign  service  sometimes  die  of  nostalgia,  which 
is  not  some  mysterious  disease  but  simply  plain,  old  fashioned 
homesickness.  There  are  other  soldiers  around,  there  are 
things  to  read  and-  games  to  play,  but  there  is  nothing  to 
keep  memory  from  tugging  at  the  heart.  College  students 
know  what  it  means  to  feel  that  one  simply  must  go  home 
again  for  very  loneliness.  The  drudgery  of  the  present  task 
makes  the  former  pleasures  seem  doubly  attractive.  The 
writer  of  the  42nd  psalm  remembered  how  he  went  with  the 
throng  and  led  them  to  the  house  of  God,  with  the  voice  of 
joy  and  praise,  a  multitude  keeping  holydaj^,  and  it  made  him 
pour  out  his  heart  within  him.  Another  writer  (143:5) 
remembered  the  days  of  old  without  so  deep  a  pain  of 
contrast,   but  still  with  a   feeling  of   change  which  troubled 

24 


THE  SOLITARY  MOOD  [II-c] 

him;  while  a  third  {77 '.  S^  lo.  n)  found  in  his  memory  a 
ground  of  reassurance.  And  this  is  the  best  cure  for  the 
depression  of  memory.  The  past  carries  with  it  promise. 
Soldiers  and  college  students  alike  are  cured  by  using  their 
memories  aright  as  grounds  of  inspiration  and  satisfaction. 
The  best  of  the  past  would  be  shamed  by  failure  in  the  pres- 
ent. The  good  times  of  the  past  would  be  very  cheap  times 
if  they  have  turned  out  men  who  cannot  stand  up  to  the 
strain  of  the  present.  We  may  not  lose  the  sense  of  solitari- 
ness which  memory  brings,  but  we  can  bring  into*that  mood 
an  added  sense  of  steadiness  because  of  memory.  We  can 
refuse  to  let  happiness  slip  into  the  past  tense. 

Jesus  told  his  disciples  (John  13:19;  14:29)  that  he  was 
storing  their  memories  with  materials  which  the}''  would  need 
and  could  use  later  when  heavier  strain  came  on  them.  That 
is  the  best  service  memories  can  bring  us.  They  people  our 
solitude.  And  it  becomes  tremendouslj^  important  what  ma- 
terial gets  stored  in  them  against  the  day  of  solitariness 
when  we  shall  draw  on  it  for  our  steadying  or  our  weakening. 

There  is  an  ebb  and  flow  of  faith.  Even  while  we  are 
saying,  "Lord,  I  believe,"  we  have  to  go  on  to  say,  "Help 
Thou  my  unbelief."  That  has  been  true  of  some  of  the 
greatest  believers.  Robert  W.  Dale  of  Birmingham  wrote 
some  of  the  finest  books  of  argument  for  the  Christian 
faith  that  have  been  produced  for  our  times,  yet  he  was  sub- 
ject to  occasional  moods  of  depression  when  he  felt  deserted 
not  by  men  alone  but  by  God  as  well,  like  the  psalm  writer 
who  said  that  he  was  as  a  man  who  had  no  help,  whom  God 
remembered  no  more  (88:4-7).  It  is  bad  enough  to  feel 
deserted  by  men,  but  when  the  mood  deepens  until  God  seems 
to  have  forgotten  as  well,  the  case  is  worse. 

II 

And  that  helps  us  to  think  of  one  of  the  gravest  dangers 
of  the  solitary  mood — the  danger  of  hasty  judgments  and 
unfair  generalizations.  No  man  is  ever  cut  off  from  God, 
and  when  he  stops  coolly  to  think  about  it  he  knows  how 
impossible  it  is  that  he  should  be.  He  knows  that  all  men 
could  not  be  liars  and  yet  the  social  order  have  any  coher- 
ency. And  3^et  when  we  are  depressed  it  is  such  things  that 
we   think.      Men   have    thought    themselves    into    madness    at 


[II-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

such  times.  More  frequently  still  they  have  become  pessim- 
ists, taking  gloomy  views  of  life.  Sometimes  we  speak  of 
optimism  as  being  blind  and  say  that  while  we  do  not  want 
to  be  pessimists  we  are  "compelled  to  face  the  facts."  .  The 
truth  is  that  real  optimism  is  open-eyed  to  God  and  the  facts, 
while  pessimism  is  open-eyed  to  only  part  of  the  facts. 
Facts  are  cheerless  things  in  many  cases ;  they  are  to  be  faced 
with  absolute  frankness  for  all  that,  the  more  frankly 
because  they  are  unpleasant.  But  we  never  see  foothills 
right  until  ,we  see  them  against  the  background  of  the  moun- 
tains. Getting  down  so  low  that  the  mountains  are  out  of 
sight  makes  foothills  seem  much  higher  than  they  are. 
Getting  up  where  we  can  see  God  and  the  troublesome  facts 
puts  the  facts  in  right  proportion.     Nothing  else  does  it. 

It  is  noticeable  that  all  the  cases  of  solitariness  in  the 
psalms  were  cured  by  one  of  two  things :  either  a  renewed 
•  assurance  of  God,  or  a  firm  grip  of  the  will  on  the  life  that 
is  still  to  be  lived,  no  matter  what  the  social  group  does. 
Most  of  us  are  not  equal  to  the  latter  way.  Henley  can 
thank  "whatever  gods  there  be"  for  his  "unconquerable 
soul,"  but  the  trouble  with  many  of  us  is  that  our  souls  are 
too  conquerable.  It  is  good  counsel  to  bid  us  assert  our 
wills ;  the  trouble  is  that  our  wills  have  weakened  under  the 
strain  of  the  things  we  have  been  thinking  and  doing.  And 
yet,  no  man  can  feel  wholly  deserted  and  solitary  who  faces 
his  task  as  the  one  God  has  given  him,  letting  the  assur- 
ance form  that  the  God  who  gave  him  the  task  will  see  him 
through  it.  Confucius  was  once  in  danger  from  an  enemy 
and  his  followers  wondered  that  he  was  not  anxious  ;  but  he 
said,  "As  God  has  not  yet  put  an  end  to  this  message,  what 
harm  can  these  people  do  to  me?"  It  is  an  early  version  of 
man's  being  immortal  till  his  work  is  done.  But  the  writer 
of  the  56th  psalm  said  it  also  :  "In  God  have  I  put  my  trust, 
I  will  not  be  afraid;  what  can  man  do  unto  me?"  (56:11; 
cf.  118:6).  Another  writer  was  thankful  that  it  is  the  Lord 
who  bears  the  real  burden  of  his  daily  task  (68:  19),  while 
still  another  knew  he  could  not  have  held  his  own  unless 
Jehovah  had  helped  him  (94;  17,  18).  Long  afterward,  Paul 
wrote  to  the  Romans  of  his  confidence  regarding  any  kind 
of  trouble  (Rom.  8:31-39),  saying  that  with  God  for  us 
there  can  be  no  one  worth  thinking  of  against  us. 

While  we  ought  to  have  a  sense  of  other  people  and  their 

26 


THE  SOLITARY  MOOD  [II-c] 

relation  to  us,  we  dare  not  let  them  be  primary.  Relief  from 
solitariness  may  come  to  us  more  directly  by  our  gaining  a 
sense  of  the  larger  environment  that  belongs  to  us.  We  do 
not  drift  into  that  wider  sense,  though  we  may  not  realize 
how  we  do  come  to  it.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  tells  how 
he  came  to  it,  changing  his  life  from  idleness  and  self-con- 
cern to  service :  "I  remember  a  time  when  I  was  very  idle 
and  lived  and  profited  by  that  humor.  I  have  no  idea  why  I 
ceased  to  be  so ;  yet  I  scarce  believe  I  have  the  power  to 
return  to  it;  it  is  change  of  age.  I  made  consciously  a  thou- 
sand little  efforts,  but  the  determination  from  which  these 
arose  came  while  I  slept  and  in  the  way  of  growth.  I  have 
had  a  thousand  skirmishes  to  keep  myself  at  work  on  partic- 
ular mornings,  and  sometimes  the  affair  was  hot;  but  of  that 
great  change  of  campaign,  which  decided  all  this  part  of 
my  life  and  turned  me  from  one  whose  business  was  to  shirk 
into  one  whose  business  was  to  strive  and  persevere,  it 
seems  to  me  as  though  all  had  been  done  by  some  one  else. 
.  .  .  I  was  never  conscious  of  a  struggle,  nor  registered 
a  vow,  nor  seemingly  had  anything  personally  to  do  with  the 
matter.  I  came  about  like  a  well  handled  ship.  There  stood 
at  the  wheel  that  unknown  steersman  whom  we  call  God." 
In  a  letter  to  his  father  during  a  hard  and  wandering  time  ' 
in  Paris,  sitting  in  a  cafe,  he  wrote  of  his  deepening  interest 
in  religion,  though  altogether  as  a  matter  of  this  world. 
Much  had  baffled  him:  "I  am  lonely  and  sick  and  out  of 
heart.  Well,  I  still  hope,  I  still  believe,  I  still  see  the  good 
in  the  inch  and  cling  to  it.  It  is  not  much  perhaps,  but  it 
is  always  something.  .  .  .  There  is  a  fine  text  in  the  Bible, 
I  don't  know  where,  to  the  effect  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  those  who  love  the  Lord."  (Rom.  8:28.)  "Strange 
as  it  may  seem  to  you,  everything  has  been,  in  one  way  and 
another,  bringing  me  a  little  nearer  to  what  I  think  you 
would  like  me  to  be.  Tis  a  strange  world,  indeed,  but  there 
is  a  manifest  God  for  those  who  care  to  look  for  Him." 
(Life  of  Stevenson  by  Balfour,  pp.  87,   138.) 

So  solitariness  becomes  God's  working  time  in  our  souls. 
It  does,  if  we  let  ourselves  grow  into  a  stronger  sense  of 
God  as  the  great  fact  in  Hfe.  He  may  not  put  the  materials 
for  gladness  in  our  visible  surroundings,  but  he  can  put 
gladness  in  our  hearts,  more  than  men  have  when  their 
grain   and   their   new   wine   are   increased    (4:7).     The   old 

27 


[II-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

monk  declined  to  receive  the  apologies  of  those  who  had 
seemed  to  neglect  him,  saying,  "I  have  not  missed  you ;  I 
have  had  God."  We  do  not  come  to  that  very  early  in  our 
experience,  but  we  learn  to  endure  solitariness  if  we  must, 
because  God  breaks  in  on  it  for  us.  Only,  when  he  does 
break  in,  he  inclines  us  the  more  to  our  fellows  and  the 
service  which  our  lives  can  render  them. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 
^  STUDY 

How  much  of  this  mood  may  be  temperamental?  In  so 
far  as  it  is  so,  how  far  is  one  responsible  for  it?  What  pro- 
gram of  correction  is  possible  in  such  a  case? 

Make  clear  how  subversive  of  the  social  life  the  solitary 
mood  is.  In  the  cases  which  you  know,  does  the  fault  lie 
with  the  individual,  or  with  the  social  conditions  under  which 
he  lives?  Suggest  the  kind  of  traits  that  tend  to  cut  one  off 
from  social  groups.  Why  do  college  societies  entirely  leave 
out  some  students  ? 


28 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Personal  Mood 

DAILY  READINGS 

Third  Week,  First  Day 

Jehovah  is  my  light  and  my  salvation; 

Whom  shall  I  fear? 

Jehovah  is  the  strength  of  my  life; 

Of  whom  shall  I  be  afraid? 

When  evil-doers  came  upon  me  to  eat  up  my  flesh, 

Even  mine  adversaries  and  my  foes,  they  stumbled  and 

fell. 
Though  a  host  should  encamp  against  me. 
My  heart  shall  not  fear: 
Though  war  should  rise  against  me. 
Even  then  will  I  be  confident. 

One  thing  have  I  asked  of  Jehovah,  that  will  I  seek  after; 
That  I  may  dwell  in  the  house  of  Jehovah  all  the  days  of 

my  life. 
To  behold  the  beauty  of  Jehovah,  ^ 

And  to  inquire  in  his  temple. 
For  in  the  day  of  trouble  he  will  keep  me  secretly  in  his 

pavilion: 
In  the  covert  of  his  tabernacle  will  he  hide  me; 
He  will  lift  me  up  upon  a  rock. 

— Psalm  27:  1-5. 

Here  the  personal  mood  results  in  utter  fearlessness. 
There  is  no  hint  of  desire  that  trouble  may  not  come  upon 
us,  but  only  confidence  as  to  the  feeling  we  shall  have  if  it 
does  come.  It  will  not  break  us  down.  That  might  be  mere 
bravado  or  recklessness,  which  is  cheap  and  poor.  But  here 
it  is  neither  of  those  things.  It  is  an  assurance  based  not 
merely  on  zvhat  God  can  do  for  us,  but  on  what  he  is  doing 
in  us.    In  life  tasks  we  come  to  a  sense  of  security  as  to  the 

29 


[III-2]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

future  because  we  feel  we  are  prepared  for  whatever  may 
come;  why  not  in  life  itself?  An  experienced  engineer  is 
not  afraid  of  tomorrow's  problems ;  an  experienced  teacher 
does  not  tremble  before  tomorrow's  questit)ns  in  the  class- 
room ;  a  trained  nurse  is  not  fearful  about  the  next  case. 
Why  should  not  a  man  come  to  the  position  of  utter  fearless- 
ness about  the  reaction  he  will  make  on  whatever  comes  to 
him  in  the  future?  //  he  knows  that  God  is  working  in  his 
life,  can  he  not  feel  that  his  resources  are  unlimited? 

Third  Week,  Second  Day 

Jehovah  is  my  shepherd;  I  shall  not  want. 

He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures; 

He  leadeth  me  beside  still  waters. 

He  restoreth  my  soul: 

He    guideth    me    in    the    paths    of   righteousness    for   his 

name's  sake. 
Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 

death, 
I  will  fear  no  evil;  for  thou  art  with  me; 
Thy  rod  and  thy  staff,  they  comfort  me. 
Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in  the  presence  of  mine 

enemies: 
Thou  hast  anointed  my  head  with  oil; 
My  cup  runneth  over. 
Surely  goodness  and  lovingkindness  shall  follow  me  all 

the  days  of  my  life; 
And  I  shall  dwell  in  the  house  of  Jehovah  for  ever. 

— Psalm  23. 

This  best  known  psalm  in  the  collection  has  sometimes 
been  called  the  nightingale  psalm.  Dr.  van  Dyke  thinks  it 
is  more  like  the  song  of  a  skylark,  because  it  is  sung  not  in 
the  night  but  out  in  the  blaze  of  day.  Here  the  mood  is 
strongly  personal — no  plural  pronouns.  It  brings  content- 
ment, but  without  a  hint  of  strenuousness.  Enemies  are  men- 
tioned, but  the  writer  sees  himself  eating  his  daily  meal  in 
their  presence ;  not  snatching  it  like  soldiers  pursued  and 
half  famished,  but  with  his  table  spread  while  they  looked 
on  !  The  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  comes  to  his  mind, 
but  he  sees  himself  walking  through  it  fearlessly.  Such 
things  are  only  a  foil  for  his  courage.  He  is  in  stronger 
hands  than  those  of  his  enemies.     Under  this  same  shepherd 

30 


THE  PERSONAL  MOOD  [III-3] 

figure  Jesus  sounded  the  same  note  of  perfect  confidence 
when  he  said  (John  10:27-29)  that  no  one  is  able  to  snatch 
out  of  his  own  hand  and  the  -liand  of  his  Father  those  who 
are  committed  to  him.  There  is  a  legitimate  personal  mood 
which  demands  action,  but  there  is  also  a  phase  of  the  mood 
which  is  almost  passive,  as  it  seems  to  be  here.  A  shepherd 
asks  only  docile  following  and  zvhen  we  arc  thinking  of  God 
as  shepherd  we  think  of  ourselves  as  called  to  follow  and 
trust  him  for  the  outcome.  That  is  only  one  phase  of  the 
fact.     Today  let  us  try  that  phase  of  it. 

Third  Week,  Third  Day 

Wherev/ith  shall  a  young  man  cleanse  his  way? 

By   taking  heed  thereto   according  to   thy   word. 

With  my  whole  heart  have  I  sought  thee: 

Oh  let  me  not  wander  from  thy  commandments. 

Thy  word  have  I  laid  up  in  my  heart, 

That  I  might  not  sin  against  thee. 

Blessed  art  thou,  O  Jehovah: 

T-each  m.e  thy  statutes. 

With  my  lips  have  I  declared 

All  the  ordinances  of  thy  mouth. 

I  have  rejoiced  in  the  way  of  thy  testimonies, 

As  much  as  in  all  riches. 

I  will  meditate  on  thy  precepts, 

And  have  respect  unto  thy  ways. 

I  will  delight  myself  in  thy  statutes: 

I  will  not  forget  thy  word. 

— Psalm  119:9-16. 

Now  the  mood  becomes  more  assertive.  Our  own  wills 
get  active.  We  become  confident,  not  merely  because  of  what 
God  will  do  for  us  and  in  us,  but  because  of  what  we  will 
do  ourselves  by  the  grace  he  gives  us,  A  cleansed  way  is 
not  found  in  a  dream  by  most  of  us.  The  element  of  the 
strenuous  enters  in.  Paul  urged  young  Timothy  (II  Tim. 
2:15)  to  give  diligence  to  show  himself  the  man  he  ought 
to  be.  We  have  found  that  there  is  no  upward  drift  in  life. 
//  we  are  to  have  the  right  to  assert  ourselves  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  demands  of  the  world,  we  must  earn  it.  Only 
whole-hearted  men  know  the  safe  personal  mood.  Half- 
hearted men  always  sound  hollow  notes  when  they  talk  of 
courage. 

31 


[III-4]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

The  mood  is  not  supine.  We  are  not  to  ask  to  be  carried  to 
the  skies  on  flowery  beds  of  ease — we  would  not  be  carried 
that  way  if  we  asked  it;  but  we  are  not  to  ask  it.  We  want 
our  share  of  the  fighting,  our  share  of  the  struggle.  And 
we  are  not  to  take  it  sullenly,  whipped  into  caution  by  dread 
of  failure.  The  note  is  joyous.  Precautions  are  not  cow- 
ardly; rather,  they  set  us  free  to  walk  the  way  of  life  as 
self-respecting  men  should  do. 

Third  Week,  Fourth  Day 

You  never  know  how  much  a  man's  estimate  of  himself 
is  worth  until  you  know  what  his  ideals  ar§.  Granted  a 
low  ideal  of  life,  and  it  is  not  much  to  come  up  to  it.  The 
young  artist  in  the  story  thought  himself  a  good  deal  of 
a  painter  until  he  saw  the  Sistine  Madonna ;  then  he  knew 
better.  The  personal  mood  at  its  best  demands  high  ideals. 
Nothing  easy  will  do.  Petty  views  will  do  for  petty  men, 
but  nothing  cheap  will  do  for  strong  men.  The  only  ethics 
that  satisfies  us  at  our  best  is  impractical,  super-practical 
ethics,  ethics  so  fine  that  we  know  it  is  rightly  called  our 
duty,  but  so  high  that  it  keeps  above  us  a  challenging  ideal. 
Read  over  the  description  of  the  man  who  ought  to  live  in 
a  world  which  God  made  and  maintains,  and  ask  whether 
any  cheap  ways  of  living  will  do. 

The  earth  is  Jehovah's,  and  the  fulness  thereof; 

The  world,  and  they  that  dwell  therein. 

For  he  hath  founded  it  upon  the  seas. 

And  established  it  upon  the  floods. 

Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  Jehovah? 

And  who  shall  stand  in  his  holy  place? 

He  that  hath  clean  hands,  and  a  pure  heart; 

Who  hath  not  lifted  up  his  soul  unto  falsehood, 

And  hath  not  sworn  deceitfully. 

He  shall  receive  a  blessing  from  Jehovah, 

And  righteousness  from  the  God  of  his  salvation. 

This  is  the  generation  of  them  that  seek  after  him. 

That  seek  thy  face,  even  Jacob. 

— Psalm  24:  1-6. 

The  size  of  our  view  of  the  world  determines  our  estimate 
of  our  own  Hves.  If  this  earth  is  the  Lord's,  then  the  men 
who  live  in  it  ought  to  be  men  of  the  right  sort.     They  said 

32 


THE  PERSONAL  MOOD  [IH-s] 

in  England  that  the  reason  Rugby  turned  out  so  many  square, 
downright  boys  was  because  Arnold's  headship  of  the  school 
made  anything  else  contemptible.  Does  not  God's  headship 
of  the  world  demand  the  right  kind  of  character  in  us  men 
who  Hve  in  it?  And  the  chief  demand  is  downright  honesty; 
nothing  mean  or  underhanded  or  selfish  or  dirty  fits  in  with 
the  scheme  of  things,  if  this  is  God's  world.  In  our  best 
personal  moods,  we  mean  to  be  this  right  kind  of  men. 

Third  Week,  Fifth  Day 

When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers, 

The  moon  and  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained; 

What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him? 

And  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him? 

For  thou  hast  made  him  but  little  lower  than  God, 

And  crownest  him  with  glory  and  honor. 

Thou  makest  him  to  have  dominion  over  the  works  of  thy 

hands; 
Thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet: 
All  sheep  and  oxen, 
Yea,  and  the  beasts  of  the  field, 
The  birds  of  the  heavens,  and  the  fish  of  the  sea. 
Whatsoever  passeth  through  the  paths  of  the  seas. 
O  Jehovah,  our  Lord, 
How  excellent  is  thy  name  in  all  the  earth! 

— Psalm  8:  3-9. 

By  such  thinking  the  personal  mood  is  saved  from  one  of 
its  chief  perils — selfishness.  Here  it  passes  into  apprecia- 
tion of  humanity.  When  the  mood  is  at  its  best,  man  looks 
great  wherever  we  see  him.  We  are  to  suspect  ourselves 
when  other  men  look  small  to  us  because  we  ourselves  seem 
great.  Unless  we  feel  the  fundamental  greatness  of  hu- 
manity, any  sense  of  our  own  importance  is  on  the  border 
line  of  impertinence.  When  we  are  standing  by  a  moun- 
tain, the  difiference  between  our  individual  heights  at  our 
shortest  and  our  tallest  is  not  worth  considering.  Whether 
we  are  five  feet  or  seven  feet  tall  is  a  negligible  matter  at 
such  a  time.  It  is  the  big  view  that  saves  us  for  the  best  uses 
of  the  personal  mood.  Asserting  ourselves,  we  are  making 
claims  for  the  humanity  that  is  in  us  and  that  we  share  with 
others.  From  one  point  of  view  man  is  small  in  the  uni- 
verse.    Measured  by  the   heavens,   the  moon,   and   the   stars, 

33 


[III-6]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

he  does  not  come  to  much.  Removing  him  would  not  jar  the 
universe  seriously.  That  is  the  point  of  view  of  some  of 
the  physical  sciences,  a  wholly  legitimate  point  of  view.  It 
is  quantitative ;  m,an  is  so  much  bulk.  But  when  the  qualita- 
tive judgment  is  passed,  man  becomes  the  greatest  factor  in 
the  universe.  That  means  that  the  real  demand,  made  on  him 
is  qualitative.  If  he  is  to  assert  himself,  it  must  be  in  the 
line  of  quality.  The  personal  mood  that  rises  from  assur- 
ance of  the  value  of  the  race  will  never  hurt,  will  always 
help. 

Third  Week,  Sixth  Day 

O  Jehovah,  thou  hast  searched  me,  and  known  me. 

Thou  knowest  my  downsitting  and  mine  uprising; 

Thou  understandest  my  thought  afar  off. 

Thou  searchest  out  my  path  and  my  lying  down, 

And  art  acquainted  with  all  my  ways. 

For  there  is  not  a  word  in  my  tongue. 

But,  lo,  O  Jehovah,  thou  knowest  it  altogether.  .  .  . 

Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart: 

Try  me,  and  know  my  thoughts; 

And  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me, 

And  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting. 

— Psalm  139:1-4,  23,  24. 

Thinking  of  this  sort  saves  the  personal  mood  from 
another  of  its  serious  perils — arrogance.  It  never  tries  to 
bluff.  It  is  not  a  surface  matter,  pretending  to  be  what  it  is 
not.  Mr.  Henry  Mackay  tells  that  he  once  showed  a  shrewd 
Chinese  buyer  through  his  linoleum  factory  when  the  inlaid 
manufactures  were  just  beginning.  He  explained  the  differ- 
ence between  this  new  style,  which  runs  the  figure  through 
the  fabric,  and  the  old  style  which  stamped  it  on  the  surface. 
The  Chinese  merchant  studied  it  a  moment  and  then  nodded 
his  head  understandingly,  saying  in  "pidgin  English,"  "My 
savey;  pattern  never  die!"  The  pattern  of  a  good  man 
never  dies ;  it  runs  all  the  way  through.  In  this  139th  psalm 
the  writer  knows  there  can  be  no  deception  in  God's  sight. 
But  it  is  not  enough  to  know  that  God  knows  us  througJi  and 
through;  we  must  want  Him  to  know  us  that  way.  There  is 
no  serious  danger  of  arrogance  when  we  keep  sure  of  God's 
knowledge  of  us.     Bluffing  our  fellows  is  the  simplest  thing 

34 


THE  PERSONAL  MOOD  [HI-j] 

in  the  world.  We  love  to  talk  about  being  hard-headed  and 
not  easily  fooled,  but  every  man  has  his  blind  side,  and 
when  we  find  it  in  other  men  it  is  hard  not  to  take  advan- 
tage of  it.  Any  big  talk  in  which  we  indulge  in  the  presence 
of  God's  through-and-through  knowledge  of  us  is  likely  to 
be  honest  talk.  We  can  say,  "I  am  what  I  am,"  but  we  have 
to  go  on  to  say,  "by  the  grace  of  God." 

Third  Week,  Seventh  Day 

I  said  in  my  haste, 

All  men  are  liars. 

What  shall  I  render  unto  Jehovah 

For  all  his  benefits  toward  me? 

I  will  take  the  cup  of  salvation, 

And  call  upon  the  name  of  Jehovah. 

I  will  pay  my  vows  unto  Jehovah, 

Yea,  in  the  presence  of  all  his  people.  .  ,  , 

In  the  courts  of  Jehovah's  house. 

In  the  midst  of  thee,  O  Jerusalem. 

Praise  ye  Jehovah. 

— Psalm  ii6:  11-14,  19. 

Here  the  personal  mood  renders  a  helpful  service.  In 
presence  of  a  hasty  adverse  judgment  about  other  people, 
which  might  or  might  not  be  accurate,  the  writer  asserts  his 
own  purpose.  W^hether  all  men  are  liars  or  not  does  not 
really  make  much  difference  to  personal  duty.  If  they  are, 
then  I  ought  to  be  an  outstanding  exception  ;  if  they  are  not, 
then  I  ought  not  to  be  one  either.  Standards  of  duty  can- 
not be  picked  up  in  hasty  moments.  In  the  healthy  personal 
mood,  we  know  ourselves  such  debtors  to  the  grace  and 
favor  of  God  that  we  cannot  bother  with  the  faults  of  others 
and  let  them  keep  us  from  doing  our  own  duty.  After  the 
resurrection  of  Christ,  he  was  one  day  talking  with  his  dis- 
ciples and  speaking  of  the  future,  which  led  Peter  to  ask 
quite  irrelevantly  what  was  to  happen  to  John.  Jesus  replied, 
"What  is  that  to  thee?  folloM;  thou  me"  (John  21:22). 
Whatever  happened  to  John,  Peter's  duty  was  plain.  It  is 
possible  to  lose  the  scent  of  one's  own  duty  by  following  the 
trail  of  human  failings  and  errors.  The  habit  of  minding 
other  people's  business  too  devotedly  works  against  persortal 
correctness. 

35 


IIII-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

So  the  personal  mood  in  this  same  section  demands  a 
positive  life.  A  hid  religion  is  quite  sure  to  develop  into  a 
feeble  religion.  Vows  that  are  worth  making  are  not  worth 
hiding.  What  does  this  seem  to  imply  about  the  wisdom  of 
a  Christian's  joining  a  church?  Do  the  faults  of  people  in 
the  church  affect  one's  own  duty  regarding  it? 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 


The  personal  mood  has  two  grave  dangers.  For  one  thing, 
it  may  become  mere  arrogance,  a  boastful  self-esteem  that 
is  unendurable  among  honest  people.  Under  that  spell  a 
man  feels  that  he  overshadows  other  men ;  his  greatness 
makes  them  small.  It  is  the  vice  of  talkative  "self-made" 
men,  justifying  the  cynical  remark  of  one  of  their  critics, 
that  while  he  admired  their  architecture,  he  found  them  gen- 
erally erected  with  the  "gabble  end  toward  the  street."  No 
man  has  so  made  himself  that  he  is  not  hopelessly  in  debt 
to  God  and  his  fellowmen  for  the  aid  he  has  received.  Get 
back  into  the  real  story  of  any  Josh  Bounderby  (Dickens, 
"Hard  Times"),  and  you  find  services  rendered  by  others 
which  would  have  made  him  a  better  man  but  for  a  stub- 
bornness which  has  helped  to  thwart  their  goodness.  It  was 
in  protest  against  arrogance  that  the  writer  of  the  131st 
psalm  declared  that  his  heart  was  not  haughty,  nor  his  eyes 
lofty,  for  arrogant  men  have  such  a  high  range  of  vision 
that  they  cannot  see  common  men.  In  the  loist  psalm  the 
writer  says  that  he  will  not  suffer  him  that  hath  a  high 
look  and  a  proud  heart,  and  that  he  will  destroy  a  man  who 
privily  slanders  his  neighbor,  as  arrogance  always  does  by 
its  implications.  After  long  experience  David  declared 
(18:27)  that  God  is  against  the  haughty,  at  least  two 
of  the  prophets  adding  to  that  assurance  (Isa.  2:12;  Zeph. 
.3:11).  It  was  just  after  Nebuchadnezzar  had  blown  a  loud 
horn  about  "this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  builded,"  that 
the  hand  of  God  fell  on  him  and  he  wandered  out  like  a 
beast  in  the  field,  learning  the  lesson  of  dependence  in  the 
primitive  way  (Dan.  4:30-33).  Whatever  virtue  there  may 
b^  in  the  personal  mood,  it  must  be  kept  from  arrogance. 

The   other   imminent   danger   is   that  it  may  become   mere 

36 


THE  PERSONAL  MOOD  [III-c] 

indifference  to  the  group.  Most  of  us  strongly  object  to 
being  called  selfish,  but  it  is  always  possible  to  justify  our- 
selves in  not  caring  for  people  in  general.  The  "crowd" 
has  always  been  a  favorite  word  among  young  people,  and 
a  favorite  term  of  reproach  among  older  people.  That  is 
because  younger  people  like  to  belong  to  something,  while 
many  older  .people  have  come  to  have  a  sense  of  personal 
independence  which  makes  cjmical  indifference  to  numbers 
seem  a  virtue.  The  continued  struggle  over  high  school  fra- 
ternities turns  on  that  issue,  so  far  as  students  are  concerned. 
No  one  argues  very  seriously  for  the  abiding  value  of  fra- 
ternities at  that  stage  of  education,  but  we  all  like  to  belong 
to  a  group  just  then  and  it  seems  most  important  to  us  that 
we  be  not  disturbed.  Many  men  never  leave  that  stage,  but 
most  do,  and  if  it  is  left  too  far  behind,  the  personal  mood 
becomes  mere  selfishness.  Under  it  we  hold  ourselves  aloof 
from  the  group  because  we  are  not  interested  in  the  group. 
The  writers  of  the  psalms  walk  always  in  sight  of  that 
danger  and  do  not  fall  into  it.  The  crowd  from  which  they 
are  compelled  to  stand  aloof  in  the  interest  of  personal  integ- 
rity is  a  matter  of  constant  concern  with  them.  They  are 
not  contemptuous  even  when  they  condemn.  A  later  study 
(Chapter  V)  will  suggest  how  they  could  stand  against  their 
social  group  and  yet  not  be  indifferent  to  it. 

II 

The  essence  of  the  personal  mood  is  the  feeling  of  our 
feet  under  us,  no  matter  how  unbalanced  men  or  conditions 
may  be  around  us.  In  this  mood  we  share  tl\e  need  of  the 
crowd  without  its  nervousness,  the  danger  of  the  crowd 
without  its  dread,  the  ambitions  of  the  crowd  without  its 
anxiety.  Men  in  this  mood  do  not  have  their  environment 
changed  by  it,  but  they  find  themselves  encouraged  with 
strength  in  their  souls  (138:3).  They  walk  in  the  midst 
of  dangers,  but  are  constantly  revived  by  the  help  that 
comes  from  above,  but  is  felt  within  them.  Read  the  91st 
psalm  and  see  how  a  man  can  face  a  perfect  storm  of 
troubles  with  a  sense  of  being  protected.  That  is  the  per- 
sonal mood  which  leaves  a  man  fit  to  take  his  place  in  the 
world  with  a  good  spirit. 

You  see  it  in  Joshua  and  his  challenge  to  Israel  to  choose 

37 


[III-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

between  Jehovah  and  other  gods,  but  refusing  for  his  own 
part  to  wait  for  their  decision.  Let  them  choose  as  they 
would,  "as  for  me  and  my  house,  we  will  serve  Jehovah" 
(Josh.  24:15).  Strong  men  do  not  take  their  color  in  reli- 
gion from  their  environment ;  they  get  it  from  within. 
Their  hearts  are  fixed  (108:  i).  You  see  it  also  in  the  three 
friends  of  Daniel  who  were  brought  before  the  king  and 
required  to  bow  before  the  image,  with  the  threat  that  they 
would  be  thrown  into  the  furnace  if  they  refused.  It  did 
not  feeze  them :  "We  have  no  need  to  answer  thee  in  this 
matter.  If  it  be  so,  our  God  whom  we  serve  is  able  to 
deliver  us  from  the  burning  fiery  furnace ;  and  he  will 
deliver  us  out  of  thy  hand,  O  king;  but  if  not,  be  it  known 
unto  thee,  O  king,  that  we  will  not  serve  thy  gods,  nor 
worship  the  golden  image  which  thou  hast  set  up"  (Dan. 
3:  16-18).  If  it  be  so — but  if  not;  it  is  all  one  to  these  men. 
-Suffering  is  merely  a  matter  of  detail  with  them.  They 
feel  their  feet  under  them  and  the  waves  break  around  them 
without  unsettling  them.  You  see  it  again  when  Peter  and 
John  are  brought  before  the  Sanhedrin  (Acts  4:18)  and 
charged  not  to  speak  in  the  name  of  Christ — which  arouses 
more  of  their  amusement  than  any  other  feeling:  "Whether 
it  is  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  rather 
than  unto  God,  judge  ye:  for  we  cannot  but  speak  the  things 
which  we  saw  and  heard."  Chrysostom  was  exiled  for  his 
faith.  He  said,  "When  driven  from  the  city,  I  cared  nothing 
for  it;  but  I  said  to  myself.  If  the  empress  wishes  to  banish 
me,  let  her  banish  me ;  'the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  ful- 
ness thereof,' "  so  he  would  be  at  home  wherever  he  was 
sent.  That  is  characteristic  of  the  personal  mood.  It  has 
learned  to  see  conditions  without  depending  on  them. 

In  American  history  two  fine  instances  of  it  are  familiar. 
One  is  the  Faneuil  Hall  meeting  which  Webster  was  address- 
ing, the  crowd  standing,  as  used  to  be  the  custom  there. 
The  hall  was  densely  packed  and  a  swaying  movement 
began  which  seemed  uncontrollable  and  would  certainly 
have  injured  hundreds  of  people  if  it  had  continued. 
Webster  called  out,  "Let  every  man  stand  firm !"  Instantly 
the  swaying  stopped.  Each  man  took  his  own  stand,  regard- 
less of  the  crowd.  Then  Webster  exclaimed,  "Gentlemen, 
that  is  democracy,  every  man  learning  to  keep  his  own  feet !" 
The  other  instance  is  the  fine  record  made  by  the  Wellesley 

38 


THE  PERSONAL  MOOD  [HI-c] 

students  on  the  morning  of  their  great  fire  in  1914.  After 
the  hne  was  formed  and  it  was  fomid  that  some  names  were 
not  answered  in  the  roll-call,  the  line  stood  quietly  while 
the  search  was  made  for  the  missing  students  and  teachers, 
stood  quietly  until  sparks  came  down  the  stairways  and 
had  to  be  brushed  from  dressing  gowns,  and  not  a  member 
of  it  broke  ranks  nor  fainted  nor  cried  out.  When  the 
order  came  for  the  line  to  move,  the  fire  was  on  the  floor 
above,  but  the  line  moved  steadily,  each  student  keeping 
control  of  herself.  When  it  was  over,  some  said  it  proved 
the  value  of  fire  drills  in  colleges,  and  it  did,  but  it  proved 
also  the  power  of  young  people  to  keep  self-control  under 
test.  It  was  the  emergence  of  the  personal  mood  in  a  large 
group.  Each  was  helped  by  the  others,  but  none  could  have 
been  held  by  the  others  if  there  had  not  been  something 
stronger  holding  each  one. 

Ill 

Most  of  us  feel  too  much  the  pressure  of  the  opinions  that 
surround  us.  It  is  part  of  the  new  accent  on  social  respon- 
sibility; some  of  it  is  that  accent  carried  too  far.  We  are 
not  the  less  individuals  with  personal  responsibility,  because 
we  are  also  in  a  social  group.  The  idols  of  the  market  place, 
of  which  Bacon  wrote,  are  not  to  be  worshiped  by  men  with 
personal  characters.  Campus  ideals  have  to  submit  to  judg- 
ment like  any  other  ideals.  Mere  chesty  opposition  to  tradi- 
tions is  foolish,  of  course,  and  it  usually  has  its  reward  at 
the  hands  of  fellow  students.  But  there  are  few  colleges  in 
the  land  which  are  not  needing  a  few  healthy-minded  stu- 
dents who  are  not  blinded  by  traditional  arguments  and  who 
will  feel  their  own  feet  under  them  and  refuse  to  be  swept 
into  nonsense  of  a  bad  sort  because  the  current  runs  that 
way.  It  may  be  impossible  to  take  active  and  successful 
steps  against  traditions  that  are  damaging  the  real  life  of 
the  college,  but  it  is  always  possible  to  hold  one's  self  free 
and  to  do  it  so  that  favor  is  not  lost  where  favor  is  worth 
having.  There  are  hoary  notions  in  almost  all  fields  which 
need  nothing  so  much  as  to  have  some  one  say  "Booh"  to 
them ;  then  they  would  disappear.  Are  there  any  traditions 
or  conditions  in  your  community  life,  which  have  come 
to   be  taken    for   granted,    but   which   are   bad    and   hurtful, 

39 


[III-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

regarding  which  you  ought  to  take  your  own  adverse  stand 
and  be  yourself  rather  than  the  crowd  which  generally  you 
can  safely  be?  If  there  are  and  you  will  face  them  honestly, 
you  will  soon  know  the  difficulties  of  the  personal  mood, 
for  you  will  need  to  avoid  mere  stubbornness  and  love  of 
controversy  on  the  one  hand,  and  mere  supine  acceptance  of 
bad  conditions  on  the  other.  Indeed,  in  the  purely  personal 
li'iood  you  may  need  to  see  that  you  cannot  hope  to  change 
conditions  at  all;  they  may  seem  to  you  too  fixed  for  altera- 
tion; but  you  refuse  to  submit  yourself  to  them;  you  will  be 
yourself  and  take  the  consequences  without  a  whimper. 

That  last  is  an  important  part  of  it.  No  whimpering  over 
consequences.  These  psalmists  cry  to  God,  but  to  no  one  else, 
and  even  to.  him  their  cry  is  rather  for  strength  to  stand  up 
to  the  strain  than  for  praise  for  themselves.  That  is  the 
secret  of  their  insistent  committing  of  the  whole  case  to 
divine  inspection,  which  has  appeared  in  the  daily  studies  of 
this  week.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  139th  psalm  is  a  swift 
and  revealing  change  in  thought.  For  some  verses  the  writer 
has  been  speaking  strongly  against  the  men  who  are  mis- 
treating him,  speaking  to  God,  to  be  sure,  but  none  the  less 
strongly.  Suddenly  he  turns  away  from  that  and  remembers 
that  these  people  are  not  his  main  business,  concerned  as  he 
must  always  be  with  them.  He  turns  from  them  and  says, 
"Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart ;  try  me,  and  know 
my  thoughts ;  and  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me,  and 
lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting."  That  is  a  healthy  reversion. 
The  evils  of  other  people  impress  us  greatly  at  times.  We 
want  to  serve  them  if  we  can,  but  we  need  to  look  after  our- 
selves in  order  to  be  fit  to  serve  them. 

The  same  swift  turn  comes  in  the  ii6th  psalm.  Finding 
himself  hastily  declaring  that  all  men  are  liars,  the  writer 
suddenly  realizes  that  he  can  think  too  much  about  "all 
men,"  and  becomes  personal  again :  "What  shall  I  render 
unto  Jehovah  for  all  his  benefits  toward  mc?"  Here  the 
personal  mood  has  large  value  in  helping  us  to  cast  out  the 
beam  from  our  own  eyes  before  we  pick  the  motes  from 
other  people's  eyes.  It  is  the  healthy  mood  of  a  man  who 
stands  up  to  his  duty,  not  against  other  people,  not  even  for 
them,  but  just  because  it  is  his  dut}',  doing  that  without 
criticism  of  others  or  else  with  that  criticism  soon  over. 
Indeed,  it  must  be  over  before  the   spirit  is. fine.     Counting 

40 


THE  PERSONAL  MOOD  [III-c] 

all  men  liars  and  hypocrites  because  they  do  not  do  so  well  as 
we  are  trying  to  do  ourselves  is  the  mean  streak  in  us,  and 
the  best  way  to  get  away  from  that  .mean  streak  is  to  ask 
what  our  own  dut}^  is  and  get  down  to  doing  it. 

When  Phillips  Erooks  graduated  from  Harvard  he  had 
one  experience  of  dismal  failure  as  a  teacher.  Ever3^body 
agreed  that  he  had  not  the  qualities  of  a  classroom  leader. 
For  some  time  neither  he  nor  anyone  else  could  decide  what 
qualities  he  had  for  any  kind  of  leadership.  He  had  a 
gloomy  six  months  wandering  around  Boston,  wandering 
mentally  as  well  as  physically,  trying  to  find  what  his  place 
in  life  might  be.  Dr.  Allen  ("Life  of  Phillips  Brooks," 
p.  26)  tells  that  he  was  much  impressed  with  Souvestre's 
"Attic  Philosopher,"  which  he  read  jyst  then.  It  is  the  story 
of  a  man  who  in  the  midst  of  the  fever,  restlessness,  and 
ambition  of  the  times  continues  to  live  his  humble  part  in 
the  world  without  a  murmur.  He  has  a  small  clerkship 
which  keeps  him  from  real  distress  and  he  learns  not  to 
covet  riches  nor  to  dread  failure.  So  for  a  time  Phillips 
Brooks  decided  to  give  up  all  ambition  for  himself  and 
take  the  humblest,  lowest  lot  he  could  find.  When,  later,  he 
found  that  he  had  a  message  for  his  fellows,  that  spirit  of 
being  himself,  no  matter  what  the  circumstances  might  be, 
never  departed  from  him.  The  same  thing  is  only  waiting  to 
be  true  of  any  man  who  will  be  himself,  the  self  whom  God 
will  approve,  no  matter  what  conditions  challenge  him  to  be 
anything  else.. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Work  out  the  difference  between  this  personal  mood  and 
the  mood  of  the  hermit  or  the  misanthrope.  How  do  you 
estimate  Thoreau  and  his  experiment  at  Walden  Pond? 

If  3^ou  were  voting  alone  on  a  jury  against  the  other  eleven 
members,  how  would  you  defend  refusing  to  surrender  to 
their  judgment?  How  would  you  defend  yielding  to  their 
judgment? 

Jesus  was  compelled  to  stand  alone  at  his  trial.  Think 
over  the  spirit  he  showed  under  the  circumstances  and  try 
to  imagine  similar  conditions  in  your  own  life  and  the  spirit 
which  you  would  be  likely  to   show. 

41 


CHAPTER  IV 

Self  in  the  Social  Group 

DAILY  READINGS 

Fourth  Week,  First  Day 

Praise  ye  Jehovah. 

Oh  give  thanks  unto  Jehovah;  for  he  is  good; 

For  his  lovingkindness  endureth  for  ever. 

Who  can  utter  the  mighty  acts  of  Jehovah, 

Or  show  forth  all  his  praise? 

Blessed  are  they  that  keep  justice, 

And  he  that  doeth  righteousness  at  all  times. 

Remember  me,  O  Jehovah,  with  the  favor  that  thou  bear- 

est  unto  thy  people; 
Oh  visit  me  with  thy  salvation, 
That  I  may  see  the  prosperity  of  thy  chosen, 
That  I  may  rejoice  in  the  gladness  of  thy  nation. 
That  I  may  glory  with  thine  inheritance. 

— Psalm   io6:  1-5. 

Here  is  the  solid  foundation  for  an  abiding  social  order 
■ — men  who  keep  justice  and  do  righteousness  at  all  times. 
Nothing  could  break  down  an  order  whose  people  lived  by 
that.  Think  over  the  things  that  imperil  society  toda}^  and 
see  if  they  do  not  all  run  back  to  some  form  of  injustice. 
For  a  long  time,  as  our  social  literature  shows,  it  was  felt 
that  the  strong  had  all  the  rights,  but  they  ought  to  be  gen- 
erous and  favor  the  weak  at  certain  points.  A  manufacturer 
had  a  right  to  run  his  business  to  suit  himself,  and  his 
employes  could  stay  with  it  or  leave  it,  and  yet  he  ought  to 
have  charity  enough  to  think  of  their  welfare.  We  have 
found  that  the  situation  demands  much  more  than  that. 
It  is  not  charity  in  this  cheap  sense  that  society  needs ;  it 
is  justice  between  man  and  man,  justice  which  is  not  stern 

42 


SELF  IN  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [IV-2] 

but  fraternal.  The  labor  problem,  taxation,  graft,  exploita- 
tion, and  all  the  rest,  will  be  cleared  when  we  come  on  a 
basis  of  justice  in  the  social  order.  And  it  is  to  help  that 
kind  of  an  order  that  every  man  whose  heart  is  right 
ought  to  pledge  himself.  The  experiences  of  such  an  order 
he  may  hope  to  share — no  prosperity  for  himself  that  can- 
not be  shared  with  the  chosen  of  the  God  of  justice  and 
righteousness ;  no  gladness  for  himself  in  which  the  nation 
does  not  rejoice;  no  glory  for  himsolf  which  cannot  shine 
on  the  inheritance  of  God,  Men  with  this  ambition  are 
needed  in   every  social  group. 

Fourth  Week,  Second  Day 

Men  of  short  views  are  the  bane  of  the  social  group.  Little 
businesses  can  reckon  their  profits  ever}^  night ;  big  ones 
cannot.  Men  who  persist  in  living  by  short  lengths  sneer  at 
pleas  for  longer  ones.  They  talk  about  birds  in  hand  versus 
birds  in  bushes.  Esau  took  the  short  view  in  his  famous 
colloquy  with  Jacob  (Genesis  25:29-34),  when  he  sold  his 
birthright  which  had  only  a  far  value  for  a  mess  of  pottage 
which  he  could  eat  at  once.  He  also  sneered  at  the  long 
view,  saying  after  a  day's  hunting  that  he  was  about  to  die, 
as  of  course  he  was  not.  A  bird  in  the  hand  is  better  for 
today's  meal,  but  two  birds  in  the  bush  may  be  worth  a  vast 
deal  more  for  one's  longer  life.  Living  by  the  day  will  do 
for  dire  emergencies,  but  it  is  poor  policy  for  life  as  a  whole. 

Fret  not  thyself  because  of  evil-doers, 

Neither    be    thou    envious    against    them    that    work    un- 
righteousness. 
For  they  shall  soon  be  cut  down  like  the  grass. 
And  wither  as  the  green  herb. 
Trust  in  Jehovah,  and  do  good; 
Dwell  in  the  land,  and  feed  on  his  faithfulness. 
Delight  thyself  also  in  Jehovah; 
And  he  will  give  thee  the  desires  of  thy  heart. 
Commit  thy  way  unto  Jehovah; 
Trust  also  in  him,  and  he  will  bring  it  to  pass. 

— Psalm  37:  1-5. 

Evil-doers  are  proverbially  shortlived.  They  have  no  deep 
roots.    The  second  commandment  speaks  of  visiting  iniquities 

43 


[IV-3]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation  with  good  reason ;  evil 
runs  generations  out  at  about  that  length.  Bad  men  would 
soon .  destroy  the  social  order.  Over  against  the  imperma- 
nence  of  evil  a  thoughtful  man  must  seek  to  set  his  own 
life  by  connecting  himself  with  God's  larger  plan.  Letting 
mushrooms  shame  oaks  by  their  rapid  growth  would  be 
folly.  It  is  the  part  of  wise  men  to  find  the  abiding  value 
and  press  that.  Politicians  differ  from  statesmen,  the  say- 
ing goes,  in  that  a  politician  guides  his  way  by  a  candle  which 
he  carries  in  his  own  hand  while  a  statesman  guides  his 
way  by  the  stars.  Politicians  sneer  at  statesmen  as  being 
visionaries,  but  history  is  for  the  statesmen.     So  is  God. 

Fourth  Week,  Third  Day 

And  he  will  make  thy  righteousness  to  go  forth  as  the 

light, 
And  thy  justice  as  the  noonday. 
Rest  in  Jehovah,  and  wait  patiently  for  him: 
Fret  not  thyself  because   of  him  who  prospereth  in   his 

way, 
Because  of  the  man  who  bringeth  wicked  devices  to  pass. 
Cease  from  anger,  and  forsake  wrath: 
Fret  not  thyself,  it  tendeth  only  to  evil-doing. 
For  evil-doers  shall  be  cut  off; 
But  those  that  wait  for  Jehovah,  they  shall  inherit  the 

land.  — Psalm  37:6-9. 

This  is  beyond  most  of  us.  Yet  every  social  group  needs 
men  as  steady  as  this  calls  us  to  be.  College  groups  need 
men  who  will  not  stand  for  dishonest  winning  of  victories 
because  such  victories  are  only  pretenses.  They  may  win 
medals,  but  thej^  beat  the  college  and  they  beat  the  men  who 
take  part  in  them  and  who  know  themselves  for  frauds  all 
the  while  and  are  morally  unsettled  so  far  that  they  try  to 
pretend  that  fraud  is  the  way  of  the  world  if  you  can  only 
get  away  with  it — the  excuse  of  cheap  men.  The  situation 
calls  for  sun-clear  honesty,  of  course.  Evil  does  prosper  in 
its  way ;  bad  men  do  bring  wicked  devices  to  pass ;  economic, 
financial,  social  frauds  do  get  on.  Saying  that  they  do  not  is 
mere  nonsense  or  ignorance.  In  immediate  and  external 
returns  badness  pays  about  as  well  as  goodness.  That  is 
because  moral  forces  work  more  slowly  than  economic  ones 

44 


SELF  IN  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [IV-aJ 

do.  But  it  is  nothing  to  worry  about.  The  moral  forces  are 
the  ones  that  make  the  final  result.  If  we  realize  that  a  man 
is  more  important  than  his  business,  that  what  happens  to 
the  man  is  the  first  thing  to  look  for,  then  evil  has  no  argu- 
ment in  its  favor.  L3^ing,  for  example,  may  sell  goods 
today,  but  it  makes  a  liar  out  of  a  man,  which  is  the  big 
thing ;  and  it  does  not  sell  goods  very  long,  which  is  a  smaller 
but  valuable  thing.  God,  in  the  nature  of  things,  cuts  off  a 
liar  after  a  while.  He  begins  doing  it  at  once,  we  see  after- 
wards, but  his  mills  grind  more  slowly  than  American  finan- 
cial methods.  Only  they  are  also  more  reliable  than  those 
methods.  The  social  group  needs  men  who  love  the  group 
enough  to  want  it  to  last  and  who  have  sense  enough  to 
know  that  it  can  last  only  on  a  righteous  basis. 

Fourth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

Be  not  thou  afraid  when  one  is  made  rich, 

When  the  glory  of  his  house  is  increased: 

For  when  he  dieth  he  shall  carry  nothing  away; 

His  glory  shall  not  descend  after  him. 

Though  while  he  lived  he  blessed  his  soul, 

(And  men  praise  thee,  when  thou  doest  well  to  thyself,) 

He  shall  go  to  the  generation  of  his  fathers; 

They  shall  never  see  the  light. 

Man  that  is  in  honor,  and  understandeth  not, 

Is  like  the  beasts  that  perish. 

— Psalm  49:  16-20. 

Here  are  two  influences  which  a  man's  social  group  can 
have  on  him  which  he  has  to  watch  against.  For  one  thing, 
it  can  make  him  selfish.  Men  praise  thee  when  thou  doest 
well  to  thyself.  Several  cynical  sayings  involve  that :  "Every 
man  for  himself,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost" ;  "if  a  man 
does  not  care  for  Number  One,  no  one  will  care  for  it" ;  "the 
meek  inherit  the  earth — six  feet  of  it  to  be  buried  in."  One 
of  our  most  serious  moral  problems  is  to  strike  the  line 
between  commonsense  care  for  ourselves  and  our  own  inter- 
ests, without  which  we  shall  not  be  able  to  do  our  share  of 
the  world's  work,  and  that  selfishness  which  is  so  often 
praised.  Think  it  out  with  reference  to  a  student  remaining 
in  college  when  he  is  needed  at  home  for  immediate  support 
— when  is  he  justified  and  when  not?    For  another  thing,  the 

45 


[IV-5]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

tendency  of  the  social  group  is  to  make  the  immediate  day 
the  important  one.  What  is  the  explanation  of  the  American 
saying  of  its  requiring  only  three  generations  to  pass  from 
shirt-sleeves  to  shirt-sleeves?  How  do  you  explain  the 
exceptions?  Is  there  not  something  in  the  methods  of  life 
adopted  by  the  generations  at  just  this  point  that  explains  it? 
If  the  future  is  allowed  to  take  care  of  itself,  it  is  quite 
sure  to  protect  itself  against  foolish  men.  College  men  who 
talk  of  letting  the  future  care  for  itself  while  they  live  in 
college  for  the  college  years  alone  are  the  same  men  who 
afterwards  talk  of  having  to  unlearn  so  much  they  learned  in 
college  before  they  could  make  a  success  of  life.  We  must 
learn  to  play  the  long  game  even  though  the  short  one  is 
•easier  and  more  attractive. 

Fourth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

I  said,  I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways, 
That  I  sin  not  with  my  tongue: 
I  will  keep  my  mouth  with  a  bridle, 
While  the  wicked  is  before  me. 

I  was  dumb  with  silence,  I  held  my  peace,  even  from  good; 
And  my  sorrow  was  stirred. 
My  heart  was  hot  within  me; 
While  I  was  musing  the  fire  burned; 
Then  spake  I  with  my  tongue: 
Jehovah,  make  me  to  know  mine  end, 
And  the  measure  of  my  days,  what  it  is; 
Let  me  know  how  frail  I  am. 

Behold,  thou  hast  made  my  days  as  handbreadths; 
And  my  life-time  is  as  nothing  before  thee: 
Surely  every  man  at  his  best  estate  is  altogether  vanity. 

— Psalm  39:  1-5. 

This  suggests  a  salutary  element  for  a  man  who  wants  to 
take  his  place  in  the  social  group.  He  must  recognize  the 
presence  in  it  of  adverse  elements  before  which  he  ought  to 
be  cautious.  Sometimes  men  look  about  a  group  to  see  if 
they  dare  say  a  certain  thing.  That  is  both  bad  and  good. 
If  they  are  anxious  lest  som.e  man  too  good  to  hear  dirty 
stories  may  be  about  and  they  want  to  tell  such  stories,  then 
they  are  poor  instances.  But  if  they  are  seeing  whether  what 
they  are  going  to  say  will  be  understood  as  they  mean  it,  they 
.are  wise.     When  certain  types  of  men  are  around,  wise  men 

46 


SELF  IN  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [IV-6] 

have  to  guard  their  tongues,  as  this  psalmist  says.  Men 
who  blurt  out  whatever  they  think  under  all  conditions,  no 
matter  who  is  about,  like  to  call  themselves  honest  and  out- 
spoken;  they  miss  the  adjectives;  they  are  foolish  and  uncon- 
trolled. Half  the  meaning  of  anything  we  ever  sa}^  is  in 
the  hearing  of  it.  There  are  judgments  which  will  be  under- 
stood in  one  group  which  will  be  wholly  misunderstood  in 
another.  Older  people  cannot  always  say  all  that  is  in  their 
minds  v/hen  certain  younger  ones  are  around,  without  doing 
a  damage  to  the  social  group  for  which  they  are  responsible. 
We  have  to  learn  to  care  more  for  our  group  than  for  the 
sound  of  our  own  voices. 

Fourth  V/eek,  Sixth  Day 

Jehovah  is  my  portion: 

I  have  said  that  I  would  observe  thy  words. 

I  entreated  thy  favor  with  my  whole  heart: 

Be  merciful  unto  me  according  to  thy  word. 

I  thought  on  my  ways, 

And  turned  my  feet  unto  thy  testimonies, 

I  made  haste,  and  delayed  not. 

To  observe  thy  commandments.  .  .  . 

I  am  a  companion  of  all  them  that  fear  thee, 

And  of  them  that  observe  thy  precepts. 

The  earth,  O  Jehovah,  is  full  of  thy  lovingkindness: 

Teach  me  thy  statutes. 

— Psalm  119:57-60,  63,  64. 

The  resolution  to  be  one's  best  self  is  generally  made  in  a 
measure  of  solitude.  We  face  a  situation  and  determine  that 
our  duty  is  thus  and  so.  Then  we  brace  ourselves  to  take 
our  stand  even  if  we  have  to  do  it  alone,  and  many  times 
we  have  reason  to  think  we  will  be  alone  in  it.  One  of  our 
pleasantest  surprises  is  finding  that  other  people  are  getting 
ready  to  do  the  same  thing  or  have  already  done  it.  Some- 
times they  are  merely  waiting  for  a  leader,  sometimes  they 
have  already  taken  their  stand  quietly.  You  have  noticed 
how  often  in  a  discussion  a  motion  seems  suddenly  to  crys- 
tallize a  wholly  unsuspected  sentiment  in  a  group.  You  made 
the  motion  feeling  that  it  would  be  defeated  at  once,  but 
that  you  must  do  at  least  that  much  to  square  yourself  with 
your    conscience,    and   you    found    that    most    of    the   group 

47 


[IV-7]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

were  thinking  the  same  way,  but  no  one  had  made  the  start. 
Elijah  in  the  desert  thought  he  was  the  only  man  left  for 
God  in  Israel,  but  he  was  happily  surprised  when  he  learned 
of  a  good  number  like  himself  whose  presence  he  had  not 
suspected,  and  also  learned  of  a  prophet  who  would  be  ready 
to  carry  on  the  enterprise  after  he  himself  was  dead.  Try- 
ing to  help  our  group,  we  are  not  alone,  but  companions  to 
all  who  are  trying  to  do  the  same  thing. 


Fourth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

Our  American  Revised  Bibles  give  the  15th  psalm  a  happy 
title :  Description  of  a  Citizen  of  Zion.  It  is  an  account  of 
the  Man  who  Ought  to  Be. 

Jehovah,  who  shall  sojourn  in  thy  tabernacle? 

Who  shall  dwell  in  thy  holy  hill? 

He  that  walketh  uprightly,  and  worketh  righteousness, 

And  speaketh  truth  in  his  heart; 

He  that  slandereth  not  with  his  tongue, 

Nor  doeth  evil  to  his  friend, 

Nor  taketh  up  a  reproach  against  his  neighbor; 

In  whose  eyes  a  reprobate  is  despised, 

But  who  honoreth  them  that  fear  Jehovah; 

He  that  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt,  and  changeth  not; 

He  that  putteth  not  out  his  money  to  interest. 

Nor  taketh  reward  against  the  innocent. 

He  that  doeth  these  things  shall  never  be  moved. 

— Psalm  15. 

Study  the  eleven  elements  of  character  in  this  citizen  of 
God's  world  and  see  that  they  arc  all  social.  They  have  to 
do  with  the  way  in  which  he  gets  along  with  his  fellows. 
To  be  sure,  they  are  not  surface  matters.  Character  is  an 
inner  matter.  Truthful  words  carry  us  a  long  way,  but  they 
break  down  if  they  are  not  from  the  heart.  Until  we  learn 
to  think  truthfully,  we  are  not  safe  in  speaking  truthfully. 
We  trip  up  soon  or  late.  Nor  are  these  traits  negative  alone. 
Reprobates  cannot  be  let  alone.  Good  men  cannot  get  away 
from  despising  them.  The  soft  nature  that  tries  to  regard 
all  men  alike  is  poor  stuff  for  making  a  social  order.  Nor 
are  they  easy  traits.  It  costs  to  be  consistent.  Finding 
ourselves  bound  in  honor  to  personal  sacrifice  is  not  a  pleas- 

48 


SELF  IN  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [IV-c]" 

ant  experience,  but  it  gives  no  excuse  for  failing  the  group 
which  has  depended  on  us.  The  group  is  more  than  the  self, 
and  when  it  gains,  the  self  asks  no  more.  That  is  high  doc- 
trine, but  the  coming  society  will  be  built  on  it. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

For  weal  or  for  woe  we  are  in  social  groups  and  we  can- 
not get  out  of  them.  We  leave  one  group  only  to  go  to 
another.  It  may  be  our  duty  to  change  or  it  may  be  our 
duty  to  abide  where  we  are.  But  we  are  always  abnormal 
and  a  bit  absurd  when  we  pretend  to  get  along  without  a 
group.  The  writers  of  the  psalms  seem  never  to  be  out  of 
sight  of  their  relation  to  a  social  group.  Some  of  their  hard- 
est experiences  came  from  it.  In  the  group  were  men  who 
loved  to  do  them  mischief,  selfish  men,  careless,  indifferent 
to  the  things  that  meant  most  to  themselves,  and  brighter  in 
many  cases  than  themselves.  They  actually  did  get  on  with 
their  evil  plans.  One  of  the  problems  of  the  psalmists  was 
to  find  and  keep  the  right  attitude  toward  the  group  and  these 
men.  They  were  not  of  the  sort  that  could  let  purely.personal 
feelings  determine  their  attitude.  As  moral  beings  in  a  moral 
world  they  could  not  pretend  that  moral  differences  need 
not  be  considered.  They  knew  they  had  to  be  considered  in 
the  long  run  and  that  God  in  the  nature  of  things  puts  them 
first.  Loving  had  men  is  entirely  feasible  and  under  the 
teaching  of  Christ  we  have  learned  it  as  a  duty.  But  it  does 
not  blind  honest  men  to  the  fact  that  badness  is  doomed  and 
the  social  order  that  puts  up  with  it  is  doomed  also. 

Most  of  us  would  hardly  dare  to  voice  the  attitude  toward 
evil  men  that  is  expressed  in  some  of  the  psalms,  such  as 
the  35th,  69th,  109th,  and  occasional  verses  in  others,  because 
it  would  involve  personal  antagonism  in  our  own  hearts. 
But  we'  would  be  vastly  stronger  as  members  of  our  social 
group  if  we  could  be  as  deeply  stirred  over  moral  conditions 
as  those  psalms  indicate.  What  we  are  afraid  of  is  that  we 
may  be  resenting  mere  personal  differences  between  ourselves 
and  other  men  who  may  be  as  good  as  we  are,  and  whose 
evil  we  have  no  right  to  presume.  If  we  could  keep  the 
moral  issue  clear,  there  are  times  when  the  psalms  which  we 
have  just  listed  are  as  logical  as  the  moral  law.  As  Dr. 
Hitchcock     said :     'When     a     thoroughly    bad     man     stands 

49 


[IV-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

revealed,  only  lightning  is  logical,"     These  psalms  are  light- 
ning, but  most  of  us  are  safer  with  penny  candles. 


But  it  is  not  healthy-minded  to  think  of  the  group  as 
filled  with  evil.  It  is  the  only  place  where  good  has  its 
chance.  No  man  comes  to  his  best  self  except  in  the  social 
group.  There  are  in  the  psalms  plenty  of  instances  of  the 
solitary  feeling,  but  it  is  always  felt  to  be  abnormal.  The 
kind  of  character  that  grows  in  solitude  or  that  demands 
persistent  solitude  for  its  exercise  is  not  worth  much  in  life. 
What  God  thinks  of  monasticism  is  shown  by  the  abnormal 
men  monastics  turn  out  to  be.  They  are  "good,"  no  doubt, 
but  the  men  Christianity  means  to  make  must  be  good — for 
something.  These  men  of  the  psalms  count  themselves  part 
of  their  social  group;  they  leave  it  with  pain,  they  stand 
against  it  with  regret,  they  stand  for  it  with  joy.  In  the 
broad  sense,  while  no  man  is  forced  to  the  level  of  his  group, 
yet  we  rise  or  fall  together.  We  can  be  better  or  worse 
than  the  group  to  which  we  belong,  but  our  betterness  or 
our  worseness  will  be  sure  to  afifect  the  level  of  the  whole 
group  in  some  degree.  Even  Jesus,  who  seemed  miles  above 
the  moral  level  around  him,  set  out  from  the  very  first  to  pull 
up  toward  his  own  level  a  small  group  of  twelve,  with  others 
less  formally  included,  and  through  them  began  immediately  to 
affect  the  general  level.  No  office  man  ever  stood  up 
decently  and  manfully  for  the  thing  that  is  right  without 
changing  the  level  of  the  office  in  some  measure.  No  man 
ever  went  the  pace  of  evil  in  a  college,  unresisted  by  the 
student  forces,  without  lowering  the  general  level.  Con- 
scious resistance  can,  of  course,  isolate  one  from  the  gen- 
eral movement  for  a  time.  Think  out  why  it  is^  that  in 
times  of  religious  revival  some  people  seem  all  the  more 
inclined  to  the  wrong  thing;  can  you  understand  that  in 
your  own  life?  On  the  other  hand,  how  is  it  that  when  the 
moral  level  of  a  village  is  peculiarly  low  an  occasional  fine 
character  appears  and  is  steadily  maintained?  Is  that  gen- 
erally the  case,  however?  Does  it  not  hold  true  that  a  col- 
lege or  a  village  rises  or  falls  together? 

It  is  this  close  interweaving  of  interests  that  brings  out  the 
unselfish  vein  in  us  all.     We  learn  to  pray  God  to  visit  us 

50 


SELF  IN  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [IV-cJ 

with  his  salvation  (106:1-5),  not  for  our  own  sakes  alone^ 
but  because  we  are  eager  to  see  the  group  share  the  blessing. 
We  want  it  for  ourselves,  but  as  members  of  a  group.  Many 
a  man  has  set  himself  to  build  up  the  character  of  the  col- 
lege of  which  he  is  part,  not  for  his  own  sake,  but  because 
of  other  students  who  will  be  cheered  by  it.  When  a  man 
from  a  small  college  won  a  graduate  fellowship,  he  declared 
that  he  valued  it  less  for  his  own  sake  than  for  the  sake  of 
the  little  college  and  the  fellows  who  were  there  getting^ 
their  education,  and  who  would  be  reassured  as  to  the  value 
of  the  training  they  were  getting.  Many  a  man  has  been  kept 
from  courses  of  conduct  because  the  traditions  of  his  col- 
lege are  against  them.  He  feels  bound  in  the  same  bundle 
of  life  with  the  fellows  who  are  gone.  And  every  genera- 
tion of  students  ought  to  give  careful  thought  before  they 
change  college  traditions,  specially  those  that  have  entered 
into  the  fiber  of  the  institution.  Its  play  traditions  may  have 
little  value ;  its  trick  traditions  may  have  less ;  but  its  real 
educational  traditions,  of  honesty  and  reliability,  of  square- 
ness and  steadiness,  are  among  its  assets  of  which  no  gen- 
eration of  students  can  deprive  it  without  doing  despite  to 
the  hard  labor  by  which  such  traditions  are  always  built  up 
in  the  first  place.  They  have  come  into  the  inheritance  and 
they  are  not  to  trifle  with  it. 

David  Livingstone  "remembered  his  father's  telling  him  as 
a  lad  that  the  Livingstone  family  had  never  been  rich  or 
famous,  but  it  had  always  been  honest ;  there  had  never  been 
a  liar  in  it,  so  far  as  the  records  were  known.  If  any  of  the 
new  generation  became  liars  or  dishonest  they  would  be 
betraying  the  generations  that  had  gone  before  them.  So 
we  become  companions  of  those  that  fear  God  in  all  genera- 
tions (119:63)  and  we  learn  the  meaning  of  dwelHng  to- 
gether with  our  fellows  in  unity  (133)  by  which  blessing 
flows  down  from  the  higher  levels  to  the  lower  ones,  as  dew 
descends  from  higher  Hermon  to  lower  Zion  in  Palestine. 

Being  so  fully  part  of  the  social  group,  we  keep  our  wide 
interest  in  men.  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  wanted  Charles 
Sumner  to  see  and  know  Edwin  Booth.  When  she  proposed 
a  meeting,  however,  Sumner  replied :  "I  don't  know  that  I 
should  care  to  meet  him.  I  have  outlived  my  interest  in 
individuals."  In  her  diary,  Mrs.  Howe  adds,  "Fortunately, 
God  Almighty  had  not,  by  last  accounts,  got  so  far."     Most 

51 


IIV-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

students  of  Sumner  would  feel  that  an  enthusiasm  for  indi- 
viduals would  have  helped  his  service  of  the  whole,  fine  as 
that  was.  Here  is  the  place  to  discuss  in  your  own  mind 
whether  there  is  any  way  of  balancing  the  social  and  indi- 
vidual interests  so  that  each  gets  its  share  of  attention.  The 
social  group  .is  the  bigger  fact,  but  it  is  impossible  without 
the  individuals  who  make  it  up,  and  they  would  seem  the 
fundamental  fact.  What  is  the  truth  and  what  is  the  error  in 
saying  that  the  state  exists  for  citizens  and  not  citizens  for 
the  state?  Under  what  conditions  should  a  fraternity  exist 
for  its  members  and  when  should  its  members  think  of  them- 
selves rather  than  in  terms  of  the  fraternity? 

Sharing  the  common  life  of  the  social  group,  we  come  to 
honest  acknowledgment  of  the  claims  of  its  good  and  evil 
on  us.  The  reenforcing  of  good  (22:22;  40:10)  is  as 
important  as  the  opposing  of  evil.  It  gives  the  same  chance 
for  energy,  and  is  all  the  more  promising  because  it  is 
always  rewarded  with  a  measure  of  success.  Negative  atti- 
tudes have  always  to  be  supplemented  by  positive  ones  to 
become  effective.  Men  who  know  what  we  ought  not  to  do 
are  likely  to  be  merely  troublesome,  until  some  man  comes 
along  who  knows  what  ought  to  be  done  instead.  The  man 
whom  we  dread  is  the  one  who  can  pick  flaws  in  plans,  but 
has  no  constructive  thing  to  propose.  The  best  argument 
against  a  poor  way  of  doing  things  is  a  better  way  of  doing 
them.  A  bewildered  Freshman  returned  from  an  hour  with 
his  tutor  saying  that  he  now  knew  so  man}^  things  that  he 
must  not  do  during  his  first  year  that  he  would  welcome  at 
least  one  thing  that  he  could  do !  Service  of  the  social  group 
demands  more  than  the  attitude  of  opposition  to  its  evil. 

But  it  does  demand  that  attitude,  for  all  that.  The  pres- 
ence of  a  wrong  or  doubtful  thing  puts  every  man  on  his 
guard  if  he  is  really  trying  to  help.  It  is  not  hypocritical, 
it  is  only  sensible,  to  consider  who  are  present  before  one 
speaks  (39:1,  2).  There  are  criticisms  which  it  is  wise  to 
make  in  some  hearings  which  would  be  most  unwise  in 
other  hearings.  Judgments  on  the  Church  mean  one  thing 
to  church  people  and  quite  another  thing  to  scoffing  out- 
siders. You  can  see  that  in  the  use  these  people  make  of 
the  attacks  which  evangelists  make  on  the  Church.  Inside 
people  accept  them  as  challenges  to  cure  the  evils  complained 
of,  knowing  that  the  evangelist  himself  still  loves  and  honors 

52 


SELF  IN  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [IV-c] 

the  Church  or  he  would  not  stay  in  it.  Outside  people  make 
it  an  added  reason  for'  disregarding  or  sneering  at  the 
Church.  Apply  the  same  thing  to  criticism  of  faculty  actions 
or  student  votes ;  under  what  conditions  are  they  wise,  and 
when  are  they  not  so?  Is  it  any  use,  in  your  own  com- 
munity, to  try  to  stop  criticism  of  official  actions?  Is  the 
criticism  generally  healthy?  So  far  as  you  take  part  in  it 
yourself,  can  your  purpose  and  method  be  wholly  approved? 


II 

All  the  way  through  our  relation  to  the  social  group  is 
the  demand  for  the  poised  life.  The  success  of  evil,  the  fre- 
quent difficulty  of  good,  tend  to  i^nsettle  us.  The  founda- 
tion under  us  seems  insecure  and  our  feet  almost  slip  (73:2). 
We  can  even  come"  to  feel  that  we  have  been  wasting  our 
effort,  making  fools  of  ourselves  for  nothing  {yT,:  13).  Over 
against  this  natural  rhood  of  depression  was  written  much  of 
Psalms  26,  2>7,  49.  and  y2,.  The  resistance  had  been  made,  but 
what  had  come  of  it?  And  there  is  no  relief  from  the  feel- 
ing of  futility  but  the  assurance  that  such  effort  does  alzcays 
pay,  does  always  help,  does  akvays  work  tozvard  victory. 
That  is  because,  as  Carnegie  Simpson  says  in  "The  Fact  of 
Christ,"  "This  is  really  not  the  world  for  worldliness."  The 
universe  is  not  ordered  to  give  either  advantage  or  perma- 
nence to  wrong.  That  grew  so  clear  to  one  of  the  men  who 
had  let  himself  be  troubled  about  it  that  he  says  he  was  brut- 
ish and  ignorant  when  he  thought  it   (73:22). 

A  later  writer  (Nolan  Rice  Best  in  The  Continent,  June, 
1916)  says  that  the  world  is  not  "a  success  as  an  arena  for 
sensuous  enjoyment."  "If  in  place  of  trying  to  get  rich,  to 
have  fun  or  to  be  famous,  one  sets  out  to  build  up  in  himself 
a  strong  character,  then  the  world  helps  him  forward  by 
every  circumstance  it  surrounds  him  with.  The  only  thing 
the  world  is  perfectly  fitted  for  is  the  development  of  moral 
character  in  men."  The  argument  for  that  is  good,  but  it 
required  more  insight  and  more  patience  than  some  of  us 
have  had.  Only  the  persistent  habit  of  taking  high  views 
and  long  views  will  give  us  that  patience  and  insight.  If 
we  are  determined  not  to  take  such  views,  we  cannot  keep 
our  poise  in  the  world  as  it  is.     Low  views  and  short  ones 

53 


[IV-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

give  us  warrant  for  thinking  that  moral  qualities  do  not 
count  and  that  the  main  thing  is  to  "get  there"  by  the  short- 
est possible  route.  That  is  the  first  step  toward  joining  in 
the  very  things  which  we  once  opposed ;  so  we  become  merely 
reenforcing  members  of  anything  our  social  group  may  de- 
termine to  do,  rubber-stamping  the  orders  of  the  group. 
Nothing  else  seems  worth  while ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
doing  that  sort  of  thing  is  less  worth  while  still. 

And  the  worst  part  of  that  is  that  it  kills  in  us  the  spirit 
of  fight.  Professor  James  used  to  argue  for  a  moral  equiv- 
alent of  war,  and  the  phrase  has  struck  a  good  chord  in 
many  writings  since.  Several  such  substitutes  have  been 
suggested,  but  none  is  more  feasible  than  the  larger  con- 
flicts that  are  on  in  the  whole  social  order  of  today.  And 
as  we  have  come  to  feel  that  the  man  who  hides  or  skulks 
in  the  day  of  battle  is  only  second  in  shame  to  the  man  who 
deserts  to  the  enemy  and  fights  against  his  brothers,  so  we 
are  coming  to  feel  that  the  man  who  stands  by  when  the  great 
issues  are  being  joined  in  life,  on  college  campus  or  in  com- 
munity, taking  no  part,  is  only  a  shade  meaner  than  the  man 
who  goes  over  to  the  other  side  and  adds  the  weight  of  his 
life  and  influence  to  the  burden  that  must  be  moved  before 
the  wrongs  can  be  righted.  One  of  the  sharpest  condemna- 
tions in  the  psalms  is  the  one  that  charges  an  enemy  with 
seeing  a  thief  and  consenting  with  him  (50:18).  The  priest 
and  the  Levite  in  Jesus'  Samaritan  story  did  nothing  bad, 
except  that  doing  nothing  was  itself  bad. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Consider  the  value  of  George  Sorrow's  expression :  "Fear 
God  and  take  your  own  part."  How  does  it  fit  into  the 
thought  of  our  necessary  membership  in  a  social  group? 

Is  war  a  constructive  element  in  the  social  order?  What 
moral  value  has  it  to  justify  Professor  James'  expression? 


54 


CHAPTER  V 

Self  Against  the  Social  Group 

DAILY  READINGS 

Fifth  Week,  First  Day 

Blessed  is  the  man  that  walketh  not  in  the  counsel  of  the 

wicked, 
Nor  standeth  in  the  way  of  sinners, 
Nor  sitteth  in  the  seat  of  scoffers: 
But  his  deHght  is  in  the  law  of  Jehovah; 
And  on  his  law  doth  he  meditate  day  and  night. 
And  he  shall  be   like  a  tree  planted  by   the  streams  of 

water. 
That  bringeth  forth  its  fruit  in  its  season, 
Whose  leaf  also  doth  not  wither; 
And  whatsoever  he  doeth  shall  prosper. 
The  wicked  are  not  so, 

But  are  like  the  chaff  which  the  wind  driveth  away. 
Therefore  the  wicked  shall  not  stand  in  the  judgment. 
Nor  sinners  in  the  congregation  of  the  righteous. 
For  Jehovah  knoweth  the  way  of  the  righteous; 
But  the  way  of  the  wicked  shall  perish. 

— Psalm    I. 

Here  is  a  man  set  over  against  a  group.  The  group  is 
always  put  in  the  plural ;  one  man  of  a  certain  type  is  on 
the  other  side.  The  attitude  which  he  takes  is  worded  here 
negatively:  "Walketh  not,  standeth  not,  sitteth  not."  Of 
course  it  is  also  positive,  for  every  man  in  his  social  relations 
has  to  walk  and  stand  and  sit  somewhere.  Refusing  to  be 
in  one  relation  involves  choosing  to  be  in  another  relation. 
Ordinarily  our  social  group  helps  us.  Everybody  can  be 
better  for  being  in  college  or  in  a  society  or  in  a  church, 
if  he  is  brave  enough  to  hold  himself  up  against  some  influ- 
ences. He  must  not  commit  himself  to  sneezing  because  the 
group  takes  snuff.  He  must  live  in  the  social  group,  opposing 
the  walk,  the  way,  the  seat  of  certain  people  in  it.     Which 

55 


[V-2]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

people  they  are  will  determine  the  kind  of  man  he  is.  That 
cannot  be  maintained  on  a  purely  negative  basis.  "You 
cannot  drive  out  bad  air  with  a  club" ;  only  the  inflow  of  good 
air  gets  rid  of  it.  In  Jesus'  story  the  evil  spirit  came  back 
again  to  the  house  and  finding  it  empty  possessed  it  again 
(Luke  11:24-26).  Our  only  safeguard  against  lower  attrac- 
tions is  in  finding  higher  pleasures.  We  keep  out  had 
thoughts  by  meditations  that  are  good.  The  psalm  says  that 
the  man  who  does  so  is  blessed,  happy.  It  works  out  so  in 
the  long  run ;  the  process  may  have  in  it  other  elements,  but 
strong  men  are  not  asking  to  be  happy  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment. 

Fifth  Week,  Second  Day 

The  largest  danger  of  a  bad  social  group  is  not  that  it  may 
do  some  external  damage  to  a  man,  but  that  it  may  absorb 
one  into  itself,  making  him  like  itself,  dyeing  him  with  its 
own  colors.  It  is  becoming  like  the  men  whom  one  now  dis- 
approves on  high  moral  grounds  that  constitutes  the  tragedy 
of  many  lives.  Being  lied  about  is  no  great  matter ;  being 
made  a  liar  is  the  serious  thing.  Lies  are  like  measles — 
they  do  no  special  damage  unless  they  strike  in.  Booker 
Washington  used  often  to  say  that  holding  another  man  in 
the  gutter  is  always  harder  on  the  upper  than  on  the  under 
man.  You  have  to  be  there  yourself  in  order  to  hold  him 
there.  He  is  there  against  his  will,  and  may  not  be  hurt  by 
it;  you  are  there  by  your  own  will  and  cannot  escape  being 
injured.  Who  recovers  sooner  from  a  fraudulent  victory,  the 
winner  or  the  loser?  The  loser  can  come  to  laugh  over  it; 
the  winner  knows  himself  a  fraud  whenever  he  thinks  of  it. 
It  is  becoming  like  the  wrong  group  that  is  to  be  dreaded. 

Unto  thee,  O  Jehovah,  will  I  call: 

My  rock,  be  not  thou  deaf  unto  me; 

Lest,  if  thou  be  silent  unto  me, 

I  become  like  them  that  go  down  into  the  pit. 

Hear  the  voice  of  my  supplications,  when  I  cry  unto  thee, 

When  I  lift  up  my  hands  toward  thy  holy  oracle. 

Draw  me  not  away  with  the  wicked, 

And  with  the  workers  of  iniquity; 

That  speak  peace  with  their  neighbors, 

But  mischief  is  in  their  hearts. 

— Psalm  28: 1-3. 

56 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP      [V-3] 

Notice  that  in  this  passage  the  pull  of  wrong  influences 
in  the  social  group  is  compared  to  a  tide,  an  undertow,  that 
tugs  at  one  and  makes  him  feel  the  need  of  a  rock  on  which 
he  can  stand.  Do  not  most  of  us  lose  our  balance  gradually, 
subtly  undermined,  even  though  we  fall  with  a  crash  at  the 
last  ? 

Fifth  Week,  Third  Day 

Jehovah,  I  have  called  upon  thee;  make  haste  unto  me: 
Give  ear  unto  my  voice,  when  I  call  unto  thee. 
Let  my  prayer  be  set  forth  as  incense  before  thee; 
The  lifting  up  of  my  hands  as  the  evening  sacrifice. 
Set  a  watch,  O  Jehovah,  before  my  mouth; 
Keep  the  door  of  my  lips. 
Incline  not  my  heart  to  any  evil  thing, 
To  practice  deeds  of  wickedness 
With  men  that  work  iniquity: 
And  let  me  not  eat  of  their  dainties. 
Let  the  righteous  smite  me,  it  shall  be  a  kindness; 
And  let  him  reprove  me,  it  shall  be  as  oil  upon  the  head; 
Let  not  my  head  refuse  it: 

For  even  in  their  wickedness  shall  my  prayer  continue. 

— Psalm   141: 1-5. 

This  little  section  of  a  psalm  suggests  one  of  the  largest 
difftculties  any  of  us  can  feel  in  taking  an  attitude  against 
the  social  group  of  which  we  may  be  part.  It  is  the  loss  of 
the  advantages  that  lie  with  the  group.  Fellowship  means 
so  much  to  many  of  us  that  breaking  it,  even  if  we  feel  it  is 
wrong,  hurts  us  alrnost  too  much  to  be  endured.  We  tend 
to  herd,  and  no  deed  of  wickedness  looks  quite  so  bad  when 
we  are  with  other  people.  We  would  not  do  the  wrong- 
thing  by  ourselves,  but  with  others  it  is  easier.  Even  wolves 
hunt  in  packs  and  are  like!}'-  to  be  cowards  alone.  If  cheat- 
ing is  fairl}^  common  in  school,  it  is  easier  to  cheat.  Refusing 
the  accustomed  ways  seems  like  breaking  the  fellowship  of 
the  group,  setting  one's  self  up  as  better  than  the  others, 
and  that  often  sends  one  to  Coventry.  There  is  no  particular 
drawing  to  vandalism  or  hazing,  all  by  one's  self  ;  it  is  the 
crowd  that  makes  it  attractive  and  we  all  like  our  crowd. 
Then,  there  are  other  advantages  of  the  group,  called  here 
their  "dainties."  Can  we  forego  these  obvious  advantages 
for  the  sake  of  being  right?     Certainly  not  unless  there  is 

S7 


[V-4]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

a  good  deal  of  very  good  fiber  in  our  makeup  or  unless  we 
want  that  fiber  enough  to  pay  the  price  for  it. 

Fifth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

There  is  about  as  much  cowardice  in  this  matter  of  adverse 
attitude  toward  one's  social  group  as  anywhere  else  in  life. 
Some  of  us  are  cowardly  in  our  refusal  to  face  the  adverse 
facts.  We  pretend  that  the  difficulties  are  negligible,  or  that 
the  evils  themselves  can  be  disregarded.  One  modern  school 
of  religious  thinking  has  declared  it  our  duty  to  negate  all 
such  things.  Aside  from  the  dishonesty  that  so  easily 
develops  from  that,  we  must  keep  it  clear  that  there  is  no 
real  courage  about  it.  Most  officers  executed  in  the  war  are 
allowed  to  have  their  eyes  unbound  when  they  face  the  fir- 
ing squad  and  the  bravest  ones  claim  the  privilege.  Bravery 
wants  to  look  the  facts  in  the  face,  scorns  to  find  a  cheap 
relief  by  pretenses  about  them.  This  is  the  way  one  man 
faced  his  difficulties  : 

Jehovah,  hov(7  are  mine  adversaries  increased! 

Many  are  they  that  rise  up  against  me. 

Many  there  are  that  say  of  my  soul, 

There  is  no  help  for  him  in  God. 

But  thou,  O  Jehovah,  art  a  shield  about  me; 

My  glory,  and  the  lifter  up  of  my  head.  \ 

I  cry  unto  Jehovah  with  my  voice, 

And  he  answereth  me  out  of  his  holy  hill. 

I  laid  me  down  and  slept; 

I  awaked;  for  Jehovah  sustaineth  me. 

I  will  not  be  afraid  of  ten  thousands  of  .the  people 

That  have  set  themselves  against  me  round  about. 

— Psalm  3:  1-6. 

Looking  at  the  facts  does  not  mean  fretting  or  v/orrying 
about  difficulties  and  evils.  Instead,  it  prepares  us  for  the 
steadiness  of  life  that  makes  us  equal  to  the  fight  against 
them.  When  we  learn  to  hold  such  things  out  in  the  light 
before  God,  with  no  pretenses,  we  can  be  quiet  about  them. 
This  writer,  knowing  all  this  about  his  many  adversaries  who 
were  challenging  his  place  in  the  social  order,  could  yet  lie 
down  in  peace  and  sleep,  knowing  that  the  whole  enterprise 
was  in  higher  hands  than  his  own.  That  was  God's  pre- 
scription for  one  of  the  bravest  men  of  whom  we  have  any 

58 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP      [V-5] 

record.  Read  I  Kings  19  and  see  how  Elijah,  depressed  and 
worn  nervously,  was  first  allowed  to  sleep  and  eat,  getting 
his  nerve  back,  and  then  was  allowed  to  face  the  facts  again. 
The  overwrought,  nervous  state  is  not  the  one  in  which  we 
get  our  fairest  views  of  life. 

Fifth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Who  w^ill  rise  up  for  me  against  the  evil-doers? 

Who  will  stand  up  for  me  against  the  workers  of  iniquity? 

Unless  Jehovah  had  been  my  help, 

My  soul  had  soon  dwelt  in  silence. 

When  I  said,  My  foot  slippeth; 

Thy  lovingkindness,  O  Jehovah,  held  me  up. 

In   the  multitude   of  my  thoughts  within  me 

Thy  comforts  delight  my  soul.     .     .     . 

But  Jehovah  hath  been  my  high  tower, 

And  my  God  the  rock  of  my  refuge. 

— Psalm  94:  16-19,  22. 

Here  is  a  case  of  the  help  which  history  brought  to  a  man 
making  his  stand  against  his  social  group.  He  was  facing 
a  new  condition,  with  new  complications.  There  came  to 
him  a  moment  of  wonder  whether  he  could  do  it.  He  knew  as 
we  all  have  known  under  similar  conditions,  that  he  could 
not  do  it  alone.  Somehow  others  must  get  involved  in  it 
before  it  could  be  anything  else  than  a  mere  self-assertion. 
We  have  not  made  many  fights  against  wrong  if  we  do  not 
know  what  that  means.  One  feels  small  and  inadequate  or 
else  impertinent  and  officious.  What  right  has  one  man  to 
set  himself  up  against  his  group?  Only  a  few  people  are 
jaunty  all  the  way  through  a  real  effort  to  resist  wrong. 
Others  wear  a  jaunty  exterior,  but  down  in  their  hearts  they 
often  wonder  whether  it  is  worth  while  and  how  it  will 
come  out. 

Then  comes  history  to  the  rescue.  There  are  bad  chapters 
there,  but  the  long-running  fact  is  that  the  forces  of  good 
keep  winning  victories.  Evil  has  plenty  of  precedents  but 
not  much  encouragement  from  history.  Good  may  have 
fezvcr  precedents  but  it  has  more  encouragement.  •  One  has 
to  forget  or  be  ignorant  of  a  great  deal  of  history  in  order 
to  be  fearful  of  the  outcome  of  a  fight  for  right.  And  as 
personal    experience    extends,    one    recalls    more    and    more 

59 


[V-6]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

times  when  his  foot  held  because  a  power  not  himself  was 
making  for  righteousness  through  him.  The  finest  chapters 
of  general  and  personal  history  answer  the  question  whether 
standing  against  the  group  for  the  right  is t  worth  while. 

Fifth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

In  Jehovah  do  I  take  refuge: 

How  say  ye  to  my  soul, 

Flee  as  a  bird  to  your  mountain; 

For,  lo,  the  wicked  bend  the  bow, 

They  make  ready  their  arrow  upon  the  string. 

That  they  may  shoot  in  darkness  at  the  upright  in  heart; 

If  the   foundations  be   destroyed. 

What  can  the  righteous  do? 

Jehovah  is  in  his  holy  temple; 

Jehovah,  his  throne  is  in  heaven; 

His  eyes  behold,  his  eyelids  try,  the  children  of  men. 

Jehovah  trieth  the  righteous; 

But  the  wicked  and  him  that  loveth  violence  his  soul  hat- 

eth. 
Upon  the  wicked  he  will  rain  snares; 
Fire  and  brimstone  and  burning  wind  shall  be  the  portion 

of  their  cup. 
For  Jehovah  is  righteous;  he  loveth  righteousness: 
The  upright  shall  behold  his  face.  — Psalm   ii. 

The  earlier  half  of  this  passage,  closing  with  the  question, 
presents  one  of  the  problems  of  the  attitude  of  opposition 
to  wrong  in  the  social  group.  The  attitude  seems  futile. 
Bad  men  are  simply  stronger  than  good  men ;  they  are 
shrewder;  they  **get  there,"  while  good  men  are  so  often 
ineffective.  The  very  foundations  are  destroyed  and  "what 
have  the  righteous  accomplished?" — so  the  margin  reads. 
It  is  the  way  of  the  fall  of  many  a  good  man  in  public  life, 
of  many  a  clean  lad  in  college.  He  stands  out  finely  for  the 
best  things  and  then  there  comes  to  him  the  feeling  of  the 
utter  futility  of  it  all.  Sometimes  early,  sometimes  later  in 
college,  that  comes  over  a  student.  He  is  missing  the  good 
times  in  the  interest  of  a  principle  and  neither  he  nor  the 
principle  is  really  getting  anywhere.  He  has  stood  out,  but 
the  evil  has  gone  on  just  the  same.  He  has  become  unpop- 
ular and  foolish  in  the  minds  of  other  people,  and  things  are 
unchanged.     What  is  the  use? 

60 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP      [V-7] 

The  latter  part  of  the  passage,  after  the  question,  answers 
that  God  is  the  use.  //  this  is  really  a  universe  at  all,  if  any- 
one is  on  a  moral  basis  here,  then  the  dishonest  thing,  the 
unfair  thing,  the  cheap  thing,  is  simple  folly.  God  is  there 
"within  the  shadow  keeping  watch  above,  His  own,"  and  all 
these  bits   of   courage  count  in   the  long  battle. 

Fifth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

Cynicism  is  a  besetting  sin.  of  the  mood  which  we  are  now 
discussing.  One  easily  becomes  a  mere  croaker,  refusing  the 
evil  of  the  group  out  of  contempt  for  it.  That  is  unhealthy 
and  may  be  just  morbid.  Read  over  again  the  seven  resolu- 
tions of  this  little  passage  and  see  how  sane  they  are. 

I  will  sing  of  lovingkindness  and  justice: 

Unto  thee,  O  Jehovah,  will  I  sing  praises. 

I  will  behave  myself  wisely  in  a  perfect  way: 

Oh  when  wilt  thou  come  unto  me? 

I  will  walk  within  my  house  with  a  perfect  heart. 

I  will  set  no  base  thing  before  mine  eyes: 

I  hate  the  work  of  them  that  turn  aside; 

It  shall  not  cleave  unto  me. 

A  perverse  heart  shall  depart  from  me: 

I  will  know  no  evil  thing. 

— Psalm  loi :  1-4. 

Here  is  no  doubt  of  the  presence  and  power  in  the  world  of 
lovingkindness  and  justice.  Evil  has  not  right  of  way  in 
the  world  and  is  not  the  law  of  life,  even  if  there  is  a  vast 
deal  of  it.  Men  can  be  wise  and  can  walk  in  a  perfect  way — 
at  least  they  can  resolve  to  do  it,  and  that  is  our  part.  We 
cannot  destroy  all  the  base  things,  but  we  can  keep  from 
gazing  at  them  when  they  are  none  of  our  business.  Dirty 
deeds  are  done,  but  they  need  not  cleave  to^us.  Perverse 
hearts  are  plenty,  but  they  need  not  be  our  boon  companions. 
Evil  things  are  here,  but  they  need  not  make  up  our  stock  of 
knowledge.  When  a  man  can  say,  "I  will,"  six  times  in  so 
few  lin^s  and  let  two  of  them  involve  a  resolution  to  sing, 
he  is  not  much  of  a  cynic,  but  he  is  likely  t-6  be  a  vigorous 
outstanding  fighter  on  the  right  side.  We  need  no  more 
croaking  reformers.  We  want  joyous  ones,  who  are  sure 
enough  that  righteousness  has  conquering  power  from  God  to 

61 


[V-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

sing  about  it.  Such  men  cannot  be  triflers,  compromising 
with  evil  conditions.  Nothing  but  the  best  is  good  enough 
for  the  social  group  which  involves  lovingkindness  and 
justice,  but  nothing  is  to  be  despaired  of  in  behalf  of  such  a 
group. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

We  are  not  in  our  social  group  for  what  it  can  do  for  us, 
but  quite  as  much  for  what  we  can  do  for  it.  Of  course  it 
serves  our  lives ;  we  could  not  live  without  it.  But  it  is  much 
too  one-sided  if  we  do  not  think  of  our  lives  in  terms  of  the 
need  of  our  group.  And  that  is  sure  to  demand,  soon  or 
late,  that  we  take  our  stand  against  the  group  at  some  point. 
It  is  easy  to  accept  bad  conditions  blandly,  quietly  evading 
all  personal  responsibility.  A  strong  current  of  popular 
opinion  runs  that  way.  Taking  other  people  and  their  needs 
seriously  is  not  quite  the  thing,  or  was  not  until  the  new 
social  sense  was  aroused.  Hegel  carries  this  idea  of  social 
ethics  so  far  as  to  think  that  the  individual  ought  never  to 
set  himself  against  the  main  line  of  opinion  around  him. 
*'The  wisest  men  of  antiquity,"  he  says,  "have  given  judg- 
ment that  wisdom  and  virtue  consist  in  living  agreeably  to 
the  ethos  of  one's  people."  Mr.  Bradley  is  so  sure  of  this 
that  he  says  that  for  a  man  "to  wish  to  be  better  than  the 
world  is  to  be  already  on  the  threshold  of  immorality." 
But  whatever  the  argument  for  such  ideas,  the  reigning 
judgment  of  the  past  and  of  the  present  is  against  it.  Dr. 
Rashdall  has  plenty  of  evidence  for  his  saying  that  "moral 
progress  has,  in  point  of  fact,  only  been  brought  about  by 
the  acts  of  individual  men  and  women  who  have  had  the 
courage  to  condemn,  to  go  beyond,  and  to  defy  the  existing 
code  of  public  opinion  at  a  given  time  and  place." 


We  are  all  in  danger  of  soft  acquiescence  in  conditions 
which  we  find  when  we  arrive.  But  we  lose  much  when 
we  lose  our  power  of  moral  indignation.  When  evils  do  not 
hurt  us  enough  to  stir  us,  it  does  not  show  that  they  are 
not  evil ;  it  shows  that  we  are  dull.  H  the  exploitation  of 
the  poor  for  profit,  of  unfortunate  women  for  pleasure, 
of  little  children  as  toilers,   does  not  matter  to  us,   we  are 

62 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP       [V-c] 

cheapened  ourselves.  The  poor  in  London  were  just  as  needy 
when  the  committee  called  on  Mr.  Scrooge  in  his  counting 
house  on  Christmas  eve  as  they  were  the  next  day  when 
Scrooge  met  the  chairman  of  the  committee  on  the  street, 
but  Scrooge  had  a  hard  heart  at  the  first  meeting  and  the 
need  could  not  get  to  him ;  his  heart  had  grown  tender  by 
the  second  time,  and  he  could  feel  what  the  need  was.  When 
we  keep  wholly  calm  about  wrong  in  our  social  group,  we 
do  not  reveal  anything  about  the  moral  quality  of  the  things 
that  are  wrong,   but  we  reveal  something  about  ourselves. 

After  all  is  said  about  the  gentleness  and  tenderness  of 
Jesus,  it  remains  true  that  you  could  not  be  comfortable 
with  him  unless  you  were  willing  to  accept  strong  treat- 
ment of  hypocrites  and  exploiters.  He  was  tender,  but  not 
soft ;  he  was  gentle,  but  not  weak.  Sometimes  we  say  lightly 
about  a  wrong  thing  that  it  never  touched  us.  The  real  ques- 
tion is  whether  we  hit  it  as  it  came  near.  As  Dr.  Babcock 
said  years  ago,  "We  are  not  l^re  to  play,"  to  have  a  smooth 
time,  to  drift  along  with  the  current.  There  is  fighting  to 
be  done,  there  are  loads  to  lift,  there  are  oppositions  to  be 
accomplished.  Can  a  man  live  an  acquiescent  life  and  not 
miss  his  best  chances  to  help? 

The  hardest  place  to  meet  wrong  and  oppose  it  is  in  the 
nearer  circle,  which  we  are  here  calling  the  social  group. 
Jesus  warned  us  that  under  his  plan  for  social  regeneration 
"a  man's  foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own  household"  (Matthew 
10:36).  Not  merely  that  they  will  sometimes  oppose  the 
best  in  him,  but  that  he  will  sometimes  need  to  oppose  things 
dear  to  them,  and  so  run  athwart  their  practices.  In  the 
io6th  psalm  (vs.  30,  31)  a  gruesome  story  of  early  Hebrew 
history  is  reviewed  from  this  point  of  view.  The  story  Itself 
is  told  in  the  Numbers.  It  is  of  Phinehas,  who  saw  a  foul 
wrong  that  was  hurting  the  whole  nation,  occurring  within 
the  group  of  which  he  was  part.  He  dealt  with  it  violently 
and  there  will  always  be  nice  people  who  will  be  so  concerned 
with  his  violence  that  they  forget  what  he  was  trying  to 
get  done.  Healthy-minded  people  must  remember  that  the 
wrong  he  was  attacking  provoked  wide  imitation,  and  was  one 
of  the  subtle  evils  that  draw  many  men  in  their  train,  while 
his  sharp  way  of  handling  it  is  not  in  danger  of  imitation.  This 
is  no  time  to  defend  Phinehas,  nor  any  of  the  group  of  men 
who  stood  at  crises  and  roughly,  even  wrongly,  opposed  evil. 

63 


[V-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Certainly,  until  we  are  willing  in  safer  and  yet  equally  strong 
ways  to  oppose  evil,  -we  may  not  be  too  sharp  against  them 
without  exposing  our  own  indifference  toward  the  evils 
which  they  hated.  It  is,  on  the  whole,  better  to  do  a  piece 
of  needed  work  in  a  way  less  than  the  best  than  to  leave  it 
undone  in  the  most  correct   fashion. 

II 

The  attitude  of  opposition  may  be  both  negative  and  posi- 
tive. The  best  opposition  is  a  life  kept  free  but  not  isolated. 
We  do  not  stop  evils  in  the  game  by  going  oft'  the  field. 
That  has  its  value,  of  course,  but  it  makes  us  outsiders,  easy 
to  accuse  of  lack  of  understanding.  There  may  be  times 
when  that  is  all  we  can  do.  It  is  sure  that  we  do  not 
strengthen  our  hands  for  opposition  by  joining  for  a  time 
in  the  wrong  thing.  Repentance  after  the  deed  is  better  than 
none  at  all,  but  it  lays  one  liable  to  the  charge  of  fickleness. 
When  Paul  gives  his  list  (I  Cor.  9:  19-22)  of  the  "all  things" 
which  he  was  willing  to  become  that  he  might  save  men,  he 
does  not  put  wrong  things  in  the  list.  He  was  not  willing  to 
be  a  liar  that  he  might  save  liars ;  he  was  not  willing  to 
cheat  that  he  might  oppose  the  whole  matter  of  cheating; 
he  was  not  willing  to  tell  a  foul  story  that  he  might  later  stop 
the  telling  of  foul  stories  in  his  group.  He  was  not  willing  to 
do  these  things  or  their  like,  because  they  do  not  help  in 
opposing  the  wrong;  they  hinder.  The  writer  of  the  26th 
psalm  rests  part  of  his  argument  on  the  fact  that  he  has  not 
"sat  with  men  of  falsehood."  He  hates  "the  assembly  of 
evil  doers."  The  17th  psalm  follows  the  same  general  line. 
Thesd  men  have  kept  their  lives   free. 

But  their  lives  have  not  been  isolated.  They  have  not  let 
the  matter  become  personal.  In  so  far  as  the  sharpest  psalms 
represent  a  mood  of  moral  indignation,  they  might  well  enter 
our  blood  again  at  this  time.  Their  writers  are  generally 
conscious  of  nothing  but  a  genuine  desire  to  help  and  be 
friendly.  Their  memories  are  of  good  fellowship  in  the 
past  which  they  did  not  break  (41:9,  55:12).  In  the  midst 
of  their  opposition,  they  claim  the  spirit  of  love  (109:4,  5). 
There  come  times  when  we  feel  that  the  moral  universe  is 
involved  in  a  situation,  when  moral  issues  become  clear  and 
we  are  no   longer  personally  worth   considering.     The  only 

64 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP       [V-c] 

thing  for  us  to  guard  at  such  times  is  our  own  spirits ;  if 
they  are  right,  moral  indignation  will  never  hurt  us. 

There  have  been  two  men,  both  now  dead,  who  did  the 
same  kind  of  work  in  different  sections  of  America,  opposing 
the  same  evil  and  producing  the  same  results.  Both  of  them 
hated  the  evil  with  a  consuming  hatred  and  each  fought  it 
by  all  means  in  his  power.  One  of  them  bore  many  scars 
of  his  battle  on  his  body;  he  had  been  attacked  and  beaten 
over  and  over;  he  had  been  nearly  murdered  time  and  again; 
in  prisons  and  places  of  iniquity  were  his  deadly  enemies, 
who  hated  him  with  a  perfect  hatred.  The  other  was  never 
seriously  attacked,  bore  no  scars,  was  often  sought  out  by  men 
whom  he  had  imprisoned  for  their  crime  with  full  assur- 
ance that  he  would  help  them,  was  never  approached  with 
any  suggestion  of  compromise,  was  never  personally  hated 
and  yet  was  feared  in  his  territory  even  more  than  the  first 
in  his,  as  an  utterly  relentless  pursuer  of  the  crimes  to  whose 
destruction  he  was  devoting  his  Hfe.  One  of  them  could 
not  keep  the  personal  element  out  of  his  fight ;  the  other 
could.  One  made  individuals  feel  that  he  hated  them  for  their 
devilish  business ;  the  other  made  them  feel  that  he  hated 
their  devilish  business  so  that  it  hurt  him  to  have  anybody 
connected  with  it.  Partly  that  is  a  matter  of  personal  tem- 
perament, but  which  would  you  choose  for  yourself  as  a 
fighting  disposition? 

You  can  see  the  same  thing  on  a  smaller  scale  in  your  own 
community.  One  man  fights  a  wrong  so  that  he  becomes 
personally  unpopular  and  out  of  favor;  another  is  quite  as 
well  known  as  opposed  to  it,  but  holds  the  esteem  of  the 
group  in  the  meanwhile.  In  your  own  observation,  which 
was  the  more  influential  in  the  ending  of  the  wrong?  Which 
influenced  you  more  yourself?  Did  you  feel  that  the  second 
sacrificed  something  for  popularity?  Did  you  feel  that  the 
former  was  braver? 

Ill 

The  only  salvation  for  most  of  us  from  being  parties  to  the 
wrong  we  ought  to  oppose  is  active  opposition  to  it.  If  we 
live  as  near  to  other  people  as  we  ought  to  do,  we  cannot 
help  feeling  the  tug  of  the  things  that  they  do.  The  mood 
that  would  have  the  wings  of  the  dove  and  fly  far  away  to 
be  at  rest,  finding  in  the  wilderness  a  home  (55  :  6,  7)   is  real 


IV-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

•enough  at  certain  stages  in  life,  but  it  is  not  normal  and  cer- 
tainly it  does  not  appeal  to  the  finest  things  in  us.  Getting 
away  from  trouble  is  not  specially  fine.  Jesus  did  not  pray 
that  his  disciples  might  be  taken  out  of  the  world,  but  that 
they  might  stay  in  it  and  yet  be  kept  from  the  evil  (John 
17  :  15).  We  must  keep  close  to  the  conditions  that  need  help; 
Ave  need  the  conditions  ourselves  as  truly  as  they  need  us. 

But  if  we  do  stay  there,  we  shall  find  an  undertow  pulling 
us  off  of  our  footing  and  out  of  our  depth,  against  which 
we  have  to  stand  with  more  than  negative  aggression.  The 
influences  that  break  down  our  finest  resolutions  are  subtle 
■ones,  seldom  overt.  A  man  entered  one  of  our  large  Amer- 
ican universities  a  loyal  Christian  and  left  it  almost  as  decided 
against  the  Christian  faith.  Later  he  came  back  to  his  faith 
and  was  led  to  think  back  over  the  conditions  that  had 
unsettled  him  in  his  university.  He  could  not  name  any 
professor  who  had  said  a  plain,  straightout  word  against 
the  student's  faith,  but  could  think  of  several  whose  class- 
rooms had  the  atmosphere  of  contempt  for  it,  where  innuen- 
does and  slighting  references  were  made  to  unstated  posi- 
tions which  he  recognized  as  those  he  had  held.  The  fra- 
ternity and  campus  arguments  had  not  been  serious  enough 
to  unsettle  him,  for  he  knew  the  answer  to  most  of  them 
perfectly,  but  the  general  tone  of  the  place,  the  unspoken 
amusement  at  religious  professions,  the  disregard  of  reli- 
gious demands,  gradually  cast  a  spell  over  him.  No  one 
tried  to  undo  him,  but  presently  he  found  himself  undone. 
During  his  course  he  fell  into  certain  wrong  ways  of  living, 
ways  that  he  recognized  perfectly  as  wrong,  but  wrong  only 
by  the  standards  of  living  which  he  brought  to  the  university 
with  him ;  he  wanted  to  follow  those  ways  and  so,  for  the 
sake  of  inner  peace,  he  modified  his  standards  to  include  the 
lower  things. 

He  knew  better,  of  course ;  everybody  does.  And  if  he 
liad  faced  it  squarely  and  tried  to  accept  the  lowered  stand- 
ard all  at  once,  he  could  not  have  done  it,  but  the  undertow 
^ot  him  and  he  was  off  his  moral  foundations.  Telling  of 
it  afterward,  he  spoke  of  another  man  in  the  university  at 
the  same  time,  who  entered  the  legitimate  Hfe  of  the  insti- 
tution as  much  as  he  did  and  even  more,  and  who  came 
out  of  his  course  aggressively  Christian.  He  could  not  see 
how  it  was   accomplished   except  by  the   definite   stand   this 

66 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP       [V-c] 

man  had  taken  from  the  first  against  the  lowering  things 
of  the  Hfe  around  him.  He  had  not  evaded  the  hfe;  he 
had  lived  it,  but  always  on  the  side  of  the  things  that  were 
best. 

There  is  no  danger  in  being  where  things  are  wrong 
except  the  tendency  of  badness  to  rub  off.  There  is  a  kind 
of  wet  paint  about  evil ;  it  requires  preternatural  care  to  keep 
from  touching  it  so  that  it  leaves  a  stain.  Labelling  it  only 
adds  to  the  danger.  How  often  have  you  gone  up  to  a  sign 
of  wet  paint  and  touched  the  surface  to  see  if  it  was  really 
still  wet?  And  that  is  what  men  do  about  evil;  they  try  it 
to  see  if  it  is  what  other  men  pretend  it  is.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  wrong  condi- 
tions stirs  the  blood,  may  even  stir  the  ire  of  inherently  active 
men.  The  loist  psalm,  the  73rd,  the  141st,  all  have  this 
spirit  of  keeping  one's  self  free,  even  while  one  is  in  the 
midst  of  the  evil  conditions, 

Henry  Boynton  Smith,  Bowdoin  '34,  who  later  became  a 
great  American  religious  leader,  went  as  a  young  man  to  a 
foreign  country  to  study.  His  friends  grew  anxious  about 
him,  but  he  reassured  them  by  saying  that  he  knew  his  danger 
and  was  watching  himself.  "Be  sure,"  he  wrote,  "that  if  I 
find  my  faith  undermined,  I  will  come  home."  There  are 
men  who  would  count  that  cowardice ;  they  say  if  their  faith 
can  be  shaken,  they  want  it  shaken.  That  is  mere  bravado — 
as  though  a  physician,  in  a  plague  section,  should  be  counted 
a  coward  if  he  refused  to  watch  against  the  first  symptoms 
of  the  disease  he  is  fighting.  He  cannot  know  too  much 
about  it,  for  the  sake  of  others,  but  if  he  let  it  seize  himself, 
he  is  out  of  commission.  That  has  happened  with  scores  of 
college  men.  They  have  been  ready  to  accept  any  kind  of 
risk,  supposably  to  grow  stronger  for  life,  only  to  be  put  out 
of  commission  for  life.  What  they  needed  was  courage 
enough  to  stand  against  the  social  group  for  the  group's 
sake  as  well  as  their  own.  The  man  who  is  willing  to  take 
all  his  group  is  able  to  give  him,  but  is  not  willing  to  give  his 
group  all  he  is  able  to  give  it,  is  not  playing  fair. 

IV 

It  is  not  mere  fear  of  popular  disapproval  that  holds  many 
of  us  back  from  the  courageous  opposition  to  wrong.     It  is 

67 


[V-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

dread  lest  we  may  deserve  that  disapproval.  Becoming  a 
croaker  and  faultfinder  is  painfully  easy  and  painfully  com- 
mon, too.  Once  in  a  while  appears  a  Dante  who  can  take  a 
brave  stand  against  Florence,  or  a  Savonarola  who  can  crit- 
icize the  Medici,  or  a  Tennyson  who  can  hold  up  his  land  to 
severe  judgment  in  "Locksley  Hall  Sixty  Years  After,"  and 
yet  be  really  loving  and  loyal.  So  occasionally  a  lad  can 
stand  against  a  college  tradition  and  keep  fine  and  strong 
and  not  become  a  mere  pedant  and  stickler  for  his  own  ideas. 
But  generally  it  is  not  so,  and  we  have  to  admit  it.  It  is  hard 
to  take  a  decided  stand  against  something  in  the  group  and 
yet  be  honestly  for  the  group.  Always  one  must  pass  through 
a  period  of  seeming  to  be  a  mere  faultfinder,  overproud  of 
one's  own  opinion,  setting  up  one's  own  standard  against 
everybody  else's  standards,  taking  a  holier-than-thou  posi- 
tion, which  every  normal  person  hates.  The  problem  is  to 
keep  from  being  that  kind  of  critic  down  in  one's  heart  and 
also  to  be  brave  enough  to  stand  the  pressure  of  common 
opinion  that  one  is  that  kind  until  the  opposite  /fact  can  be 
proved  by  time. 

All  of  us  hate  being  called  Jeremiahs.  But  do  -we  know 
the  real  story  of  Jeremiah  ?  The  fact  is  that  he  was  right 
in  his  contention,  as  his  history  showed.  And  the  further 
fact  is  that  he  was  right  in  his  spirit  all  the  way  through. 
He  was  always  ready  for  any  scheme  which  was  not  pal- 
pably foolish  that  would  help  the  situation.  He  was  not 
willing  to  do  just  anything  that  any  fool  proposed,  but  he 
was  eager  to  save  the  situation  as  long  as  there  was  the 
slightest  hope  of  doing  it.  He  was  no  croaker.  He  differed 
from  other  people  only  in  the  fact  that  his  eyes  were  open 
and  theirs  were  not.  The  31st  psalm  is  often  ascribed  to 
him  as  a  man  whose  experiences  would  just  fit  such  a  song  of 
disappointment  and  query.  John  Henry  Newman  said  that 
"Jeremiah's  ministry  may  be  summed  up  in  three  words. 
Good  hope,  labor,  disappointment."  In  that  psalm  appears 
the  feeling  of  one  who  sometimes  has  to  come  out  frankly 
against  his  social  group  and  even  the  whole  social  order  of 
which  he  is  part.  Always  there  is  the  danger  of  seeming 
merely  stubborn  (v.  18),  and  indeed  of  actually  being  so,  a 
danger  that  makes  so  many  men  cowards  on  moral  ques- 
tions. Always  there  is  the  pain  of  estranging  those  whom 
one  needs  for  comfort  and  cheer  (vs.  11,  12).    Always  there 

68 


SELF  AGAINST  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP       [V-c] 

is  the  feeling  that  in  near  circles  one  is  being  discussed  and 
condemned  so  that  talk  changes  when  one  comes  along  (vs. 
II,  13,  20).     It  is  all  very  natural. 

But,  mcamvhile,  no  matter  what  the  danger  or  the  cost, 
here  is  our  social  group  and  the  only  hope  for  it  is  that  it  he 
saved  to  its  higher  ideals,  and  that  men  like  ourselves  who 
love  it  shall  not  desert  it,  but  do  our  honest  part  in  its  behalf. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Read  Browning's  "Ivan  Ivanovitch"  and  consider  sharply 
its  social  problem — the  right  of  an  individual  in  a  social 
group  to  take  the  correction  of  an  evil  into  his  own  hands. 
Consider  carefully  the  argument  of  the  priest.  Tennyson's 
"Maud"  presents  a  phase  of  the  same  problem. 

Try  to  think  out  the  principal  traits  which  a  man  ought 
to  show  if  he  is  to  set  himself  worthily  against  any  particular 
wrong  on  a  college  campus,  in  a  society,  or  in  a  community. 
Concrete  cases  are  better  than  speculation. 


69 


CHAPTER  VI 

Self  for  the  Social  Group 

DAILY  READINGS 

Sixth  Week,  First  Day 

Blessed  is  he  that  considereth  the  poor: 

Jehovah  will  deliver  him  in  the  day  of  evil. 

Jehovah  will  preserve  him,  and  keep  him  alive, 

And  he  shall  be  blessed  upon  the  earth; 

And  deliver  not  thou  him  unto  the  will  of  his  enemies. 

Jehovah  will  support  him  upon  the  couch  of  languishing: 

Thou  makest  all  his  bed  in  his  sickness. 

— Psalm   41: 1-3. 

Here  the  self  is  taking  account  of  the  group  and  the  need- 
iest portion  of  it.  The  margin  of  our  Bibles  substitutes 
"weak"  for  "poor,"  in  the  first  line.  It  is  not  money  poverty 
that  is  of  largest  concern.  That  hurts  a  great  many  and 
men  who  love  the  group  must  watch  with  interest  any  move- 
ment that  promises  to  relieve  distress  by  a  more  equitable 
distribution  of  wealth.  Is  not  that  a  surface  matter?  The 
man  spoken  of  here  takes  account  of  the  fact  that  other 
people  are  weaker  than  he  is  and  governs  himself  accordingly. 
The  weakest  men  in  college  are  not  generally  the  men  with 
least  money,  often  they  are  the  ones  with  most  money.  In 
the  average  community  there  is  often  more  manhood  among 
young  fellows  who  are  working  their  way  along  than  among 
those  who  have  all  the  things  they  want.  Men  are  needed 
who  will  set  their  strength  over  against  other  people's  weak- 
ness, not  for  their  own  sakes,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  weaker 
people.  Even  kings  get  their  honor  from  doing  that  (72:  12). 
Whoever  does  it  has  the  forces  of  the  universe  with  him  in 
his  effort.  The  law  of  sacrifice  and  service  is  universal,  one 
of  the  habits  of  God  himself.    He  takes  note  of  the  man  who 

70 


SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-2] 

takes  note  of  weakness.  And  he  sees  to  it  that  no  genuinely 
unselfish  act  is  regretted ;  he  makes  its  doer  "blessed,"  happ}-. 
When  we  talk  about  the  ingratitude  of  others  toward  our- 
selves we  reveal  that  we  were  expecting  something  for  our 
supposedly  unselfish  actions !  The  man  who  considers  the 
weak  may  have  a  couch  of  languishing  or  a  sick  bed,  and 
this  does  not  say  he  may  not,  but  he  will  be  sustained  on 
it,  and  that  is  better. 

Sixth  Week,  Second  Day   • 

The  Bible  is  not  much  concerned  about  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  but  it  is  very  clear  about  the  divine  duty  of  kings. 
The  divine  right  belongs  to  the  subjects;  they  have  the  right 
to  the  right  kind  of  kings.  This  72nd  psalm  expresses  the 
ideal  for  any  man  who  knows  himself  superior  to  others  at 
any  point. 

Give  the  king  thy  judgments,   O   God, 

And  thy  righteousness  unto  the  king's  son. 

He  will  judge  thy  people  with  righteousness, 

And  thy  poor  with  justice. 

The  mountains  shall  bring  peace  to  the  people. 

And  the  hills,  in  righteousness. 

He  will  judge  the  poor  of  the  people. 

He  will  save  the  children  of  the  needy. 

And  will  break  in  pieces  the  oppressor. 

— Psalm  72:1-4. 

We  have  left  governmental  kings  behind,  partly  because 
they  persisted  in  thinking  of  their  superiority  in  terms  of 
somebody  else's  service  instead  of  their  own.  If  they  had 
counted  themselves  chiefly  burdenbearers  for  their  subjects, 
we  might  not  have  grown  so  restive  under  the  system  of 
which  they  are  part.  And  we  have  not  left  behind  the 
many  other  types  of  kingship,  which  involve  superiority  in 
mind,  in  leadership,  in  ability.  President  Buckham  of  Ver- 
mont Unversity  called  college  students  "the  very  elect"  be- 
cause they  were  the  most  severely  selected  group  in  the 
country,  each  one  being  the  survivor  of  so  large  a  number 
that  started  with  him.  On  that  account  he  declared  their 
responsibility  is  greatest.  Whoever  knows  himself  at  any 
point  superior  to  any  other  man  is  the  theme  of  this  psalm 

71 


[VI-3]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

and  ought  to  think  not  of  his  divine  rights  but  of  his  divine 
duties.  The  king  lives  for  the  nation,  not  for  himself,  and 
the  nation  does  not  live  for  him.  In  the  Christian  scheme 
men  who  want  to  be  great  must  earn  the  place  by  being 
servants  of  all  (Mark  lo:  43).  In  any  social  group  some 
men  are  sure  to  be  broken  in  pieces ;  here  it  is  the  oppressors. 
There  is  a  grim  justice  in  that.  They  have  used  their  supe- 
riority for  their  own  profit;  a  moral  universe  cannot  approve 
them. 

Sixth  Week,  Third  Day 

He  sent  a  man  before  them; 

Joseph  was  sold  for  a  servant: 

His  feet  they  hurt  with  fetters; 

He  was  laid  in  chains  of  iron, 

Until  the  time  that  his  word  came  to  pass, 

The  word  of  Jehovah  tried  him. 

The  king  sent  and  loosed  him; 

Even  the  ruler  of  peoples,  and  let  him  go  free. 

He  made  him  lord  of  his  house, 

And  ruler  of  all  his  substance; 

To  bind  his  princes  at  his  pleasure, 

And  teach  his  elders  wisdom. 

— Psalm   105:17-22. 

"He  sent  a  man  before  them" — could  it  be  more  finely 
said?  A  man  is  always  being  sent  before  the  rank  and  file. 
He  suffers  and  they  profit  by  it.  He  gains  his  power  at  heavy 
cost  and  they  reap  the  advantage.  There  is  a  joy  in  leader- 
ship, of  course.  There  is  inspiration  in  being  the  path- 
breaker.  But  the  pioneers  are  easier  to  read  about  and  to 
glorify  than  to  imitate.  The  third  generation  after  them 
usually  boasts  of  them  by  word  of  mouth  and  shames  them 
by  weakness  of  character  and  life.  What  we  think  of  our 
ancestors  is  not  half  so  important  as  what  they  would  think 
of  us.  In  one  of  our  western  cities,  one  of  the  greatest  orgies 
of  a  recent  season,  with  lavish  and  boastful  outlay  and 
immoral  exhibition,  was  to  honor  the  memory  of  men  who 
toiled  through  hardship  and  pain  to  open  the  country  and 
get  its  life  started.  The  only  real  way  to  honor  a  pioneer 
ancestry  is  to  be  to  our  own  generation  what  it  was  to  its 
generation.     Think  over  the  names  of  men  sent  before  their 

72 


SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-4I 

fellows  and  see  what  traits  are  needed  now  and  what  ones 
you  could  offer  the  world  :  men  like  Moses,  David,  John  the 
Baptist,  Paul,  Luther,  Knox,  Washington,  Lincoln,  men 
whom  we  make  heroes,  but  who  knew  the  storm  and  stress 
of  life  while  they  lived  it.  Building  monuments  to  them  is 
cheap  approval  unless  the  monuments  are  built  by  men  like 
them. 

Sixth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

Biographies  never  take  up  a  man  at  the  beginning  of  his 
larger  career,  as  though  that  could  be  cut  off  from  the 
earlier  days  before  there  was  any  career  in  sight.  Presidents 
of  countries  are  always  something  else  first,  and  you  cannot 
understand  the  presidential  career  without  some  knowledge 
of  the  life  that  had  in  it  no  such  career.  No  one  can  -read 
the  story  of  David  without  seeing  the  influence  of  his  early 
work  as  a  shepherd.  He  blends  in  his  public  dealing  the 
tenderness  and  the  firmness  of  that  calling.  A  shepherd 
remembers  that  sheep  are  foolish,  living  for  the  moment 
and  its  pleasure,  without  long  vision  or  power  of  self-pro- 
tection. He  cannot,  on  that  account,  be  harsh  with  them, 
but  on  the  same  account  he  cannot  let  them  have  their  own 
way  without  control. 

He   chose   David  also  his  servant, 

And  took  him  from  the  sheepfolds: 

From    following    the    ewes    that    have    their    young    he 

brought  him, 
To  be  the  shepherd  of  Jacob  his  people,  and  Israel  his 

inheritance. 
So  he  was  their  shepherd  according  to  the  integrity  of 

his  heart, 
And  guided  them  by  the  skilftilness  of  his  hands. 

— Psalm  78 :  70-72". 

That  is  the  key  to  most  of  David's  rule.  Browning  makes 
a  good  deal  of  those  early  days  and  their  lessons  in  his 
"Saul."  When  Jesus  called  Peter  the  fisherman  to  be  his 
disciple,  he  promised  to  gather  up  the  earlier  life  into  this 
new  service  and  make  him  a  fisher  of  men  (Matt.  4:19). 
Peter's  life  could  be  written  from  that  point  of  view  and 
could  hardly  be  understood  without  it.     And  all  that  puts  a 

7Z 


[VI-5]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

new  premium  on  the  earlier  tasks  of  life.  Being  a  good  col- 
lege leader  or  a  good  gang  leader  has  its  bearing  on  what 
comes  after.  The  big  group  which  one  must  serve  after  a 
while  is  essentially  like  the  little  group  of  which  one  is  a 
member  at  the  beginning  of  life.  Learning  to  live  for  the 
smaller  group  carries  with  it  the  secret  of  living  for  the 
larger  group.  Peter  was  not  a  fisherman  for  fun,  but  for 
tlie  purposes  of  life,  and  as  those  purposes  enlarged  they 
used  all  the  deposits  of  the  earlier  days.  Are  you  making 
the  most  of  your  present  opportunities  to  live  for  your  group? 

Sixth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Jehovah,   remember  for   David 

All  his  affliction; 

Hovv  he  sware  unto  Jehovah, 

And  vowed  unto  the  Mighty  One  of  Jacob: 

Surely  I  v^^ill  not  come  into  the  tabernacle  of  my  house. 

Nor  go  up  into  my  bed; 

I  will  not  give  sleep  to  mine  eyes. 

Or  slumber  to  mine  eyelids; 

Until  I  find  out  a  place  for  Jehovah, 

A  tabernacle  for  the  Mighty  One  of  Jacob. 

— Psalm    132:  1-5. 

Here  is  David  thinking  of  the  larger  interest  of  his  people. 
Their  food,  their  wealth,  their  outward  prosperity  had  con- 
cerned him.  He  had  carried  on  his , heart  these  surface  needs 
of  his  social  group  for  which  he  was  responsible.  But  all 
the  while  he  was  keeping  in  mind  the  deeper  needs.  Israel's 
history  was  bound  up  with  its  religion.  Its  greatest  need  was 
to  keep  the  religious  elements  in  its  life  vigorous.  Not  merely 
for  Jehovah's  sake,  but  for  Israel's  sake  also,  David  vowed 
to  provide  a  center  for  worship.  There  is  alwa3^s  danger  of 
being  so  occupied  with  obvious  needs  that  the  deeper  needs 
slip  out  of  our  concern.  What  is  the  deepest  need  of  the 
social  group  that  means  most  to  you,  and  how  far  are  you 
really  concerned  with  its  supply?  Was  the  old  alumnus  right 
when  he  wrote  the  president  of  his  college  that  he  trembled 
for  it  as  it  received  a  large  gift  for  buildings  and  endow- 
ment?    What  could  safeguard  it? 

Recall  the  story  of  David's  disappointment  over  carrying 
put  his  plan  in   full.     He  had  to  pass  it  on  unfinished,  but 

74 


SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-6] 

largely  advanced  by  his  work  (I  Chron.  22:  14-16).  That  is 
so  of  many  fine  projects  for  good  that  we  attempt;  we  can- 
not finish  them,  but  we  can  advance  them.  Life  is  measured, 
not  by  what  we  get  done,  but  by  the  size  of  the  projects  to 
which  we  give  ourselves.  Simon  Bolivar,  the  South  Ameri- 
can patriot,  said :  "We  shall  not  see,  nor  the  generation  fol- 
lowing us,  the  triumph  of  the  America  we  are  now  founding." 
Is  not  that  the  very  spirit  of  patriotism?  The  best  things  we 
help  with  are  not  likely  to  be  finished  until  long  after  we  are 
gone. 

Sixth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

Come,  and  hear,  all  ye  that  fear  God, 

And  I  will  declare  what  he  hath  done  for  my  soul. 

I  cried  unto  him  with  my  mouth, 

And  he  was  extolled  with  my  tongue. 

If  I  regard  iniquity  in  my  heart, 

The  Lord  will  not  hear: 

But  verily  God  hath  heard; 

He  hath  attended  to  the  voice  of  my  prayer. 

Blessed  be  God, 

Who  hath  not  turned  away  my  prayer, 

Nor  his  lovingkindness  from  me. 

— Psalm  66: 16-20. 

It  is  often  true  that  the  best  service  a  life  can  render  to  its 
social  group  is  in  the  testimony  it  can  bear  to  the  better 
things.  The  testimony  is  partly  by  word  and  partly  just  by 
exhibition  of  itself.  Sometimes  we  say  that  a  good  life  needs 
no  tongue,  but  that  is  too  wide  a  statement.  A  good  life  has 
a  tongue  in  itself  and  there  are  times  when  verbal  testi- 
mony is  -as  valuable  as  any  other  kind.  Jesus  had  the  happy 
faculty  of  making  friends  with  all  sorts  of  people,  not  for- 
ever correcting  or  reproving  them,  though  he  could  not  have 
approved  all  he  saw  in  them,  but  letting  his  life  bear  testi- 
mony. Yet  he  could  speak  also  when  the  need  arose.  When 
he  was  leaving  the  earthly  group,  he  told  them  that  they 
were  to  be  his  exhibits  (Acts  1:8),  for  that  is  the  meaning 
of  the  word  witnesses.  He  was  to  display  them  as  argu- 
ments in  the  case  before  the  world.  That  is  what  he  could 
do  with  men,  he  would  say.  Mr.  Moody  said  he  resolved  to 
g^ve  the  grace  of  God  a  chance  to  show  what  could  be  done 

75 


[VI-7]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

with  a  life  wholly  given  over  to  it.  The  resolution  was  a 
daring  one,  too  much  for  most  of  us,  but  challenging  every 
one  of  us.  It  calls  for  a  right  life,  which  does  not  regard 
iniquity  in  the  heart  so  that  it  can  be  blessed  before  men, 
and  also  for  words  of  testimony  in  their  time  and  place. 
A  ruined  man  told  a  pastor  that  he  wished  he  could  set  up 
his  life  as  a  red  flag  at  certain  danger-points  for  young 
people.  Why  not  set  up  our  lives  as  white  flags  of  encour- 
agement at  difficult  points  of  life  for  our  group? 

Sixth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

I  will  come  with  the  mighty  acts  of  the  Lord  Jehovah: 

I  will  make  mention  of  thy  righteousness,  even  of  thine 
only. 

O  God,  thou  hast  taught  me  from  my  youth; 

And  hitherto  have  I  declared  thy  wondrous  works. 

Yea,  even  when  I  am  old  and  grayheaded,  O  God,  forsake 
me  not. 

Until  I  have  declared  thy  strength  unto  the  next  genera- 
tion, t 

Thy  might  to  every  one  that  is  to  come. 

Thy  righteousness  also,  O   God,  is  very  high; 

Thou  who  hast  done  great  things, 

O  God,  who  is  like  unto  thee? 

— Psalm    71: 16-19. 

This  is  the  way  it  looks  from  the  farther  end  of  life. 
Youth  is  past,  but  its  memories  remain.  Some  of  them  are 
dim ;  others  are  still  clear-cut.  Most  college  men  are  sur- 
prised as  the  years  go  on  to  see  what  a  readjustment  occurs 
in  memories.  At  reunions  they  talk  of  the  more  trifling 
things ;  down  in  their  hearts  they  treasure  the  things  that 
counted,  if  there  were  any  such  things.  It  is  those  things 
that  get  to  the  center  of  thought  when  they  speak  seriously 
of  the  meaning  of  college  life.  Students  hearing  them 
sometimes  sneer  at  their  pretense  of  making  the  really  great 
things  so  important;  they  say  that  they  do  not  believe  they 
thought  so  at  the  time,  and  they  are  perfectly  right.  But 
that  is  what  time  does;  it  shows  what  lasts  in  life  and  what 
does  not.  On  the  whole,  who  would  be  the  better  judge  of 
the  lasting  things,  the  man  who  has  lived  his  life  or  the  man 
who  is  beginning  it?    This  man  takes  farther  views  and  wants 

76 


SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-c] 

his  life  to  count  with  the  next  generation.  There  is  a  mood 
of  age  which  young  people  sometimes  note  with  disapproval, 
which  suggests  that  the  passing  generation  carries  away 
with  it  the  main  body  of  wisdom.  Job  scoffed  at  his  friends 
by  saying  that  doubtless  they  were  the  people  and  wisdom 
would  die  with  them  (Job  12:2),  but  the  sneer  runs  deeper 
than  we  readily  think.  If  wisdom  does  die  with  any  genera- 
tion, so  much  the  more  shame  to  that  generation.  All  that 
we  have  that  is  best  ought  to  be  passed  on  to  the  next  genera- 
tion in  life,  college  or  community. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

The  psalms  reveal  throughout  a  strong  sense  of  the  obliga- 
tion of  a  man  to  take  his  place  in  his  social  group  and  lose 
himself  in  it,  a  kind  of  forerunner  of  Jesus'  word  that  a 
man  must  lose  his  life  to  save  it.  In  telling  the  story  of 
Moses  (106:32)  it  is  said  that  he  suffered  not  so  much  be- 
cause of  his  own  misdeed  as  because  of  the  provocation 
which  came  to  him  from  his  social  group.  It  went  ill  with 
him  for  their  sakes.  It  is  only  in  theory  that  a  hard  and  fast 
individualism  is  possible.  In  experience  men  are  always 
living  and  suffering  for  and  because  of  the  social  group.  We 
are  socially  built,  and  we  never  come  to  ourselves  except  in 
social  service.  What  the  group  does  for  the  individual  does 
not  now  concern  us ;  we  are  to  think  in  this  study  of  what 
the  individual  must  be  and  do  for  the  group. 


At  the  beginning,  the  attitude  of  these  songs  toward  the 
commonplace  duty  a-s  over  against  the  exceptional  one  is 
apparent.  It  appears  in  their  frequent  reference  to  the  bless- 
ing of  kindness  to  the  poor  and  needy  (41:1;  112:5),  and 
also  in  the  complaint  of  unkindness  which  is  so  often  made, 
with  the  assertion  that  this  ensures  the  attention  of  God  and 
the  penalty  of  his  wrath  on  the  unkind  (109:4,  5 ;  35  :  14,  15)- 
One  verse  is  specially  suggestive :  "They  also  that  render  evil 
for  good  are  adversaries  unto  me,  because  I  follow  the  thing 
that  is  good"  (38:20).  The  pressure  of  this  steady  demand 
for  fellowship  with  need  is  likely  to  become  so  familiar  that 
we  lose  ail  sense  of  it.     The  emergent  needs  overshadow  it. 

77 


[VI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Most  of  the  city  charitable  organizations  in  America  an- 
nounced shortly  after  the  European  war  began  that  their 
funds  for  current  work  had  been  greatly  reduced  by  the 
special  relief  funds  that  had  been  raised  for  European 
peoples.  That  was  entirely  natural ;  what  is  your  estimate 
of  the  equity  or  wisdom  of  it? 

An  interesting  instance  of  the  contact  of  the  commonplace 
and  the  emergent  needs  occurs  in.  Mark  14 :  3-9,  in  the  inci- 
dent of  the  alabaster  cruse  of  ointment,  about  which  the  dis- 
ciples complained  because  it  seemed  a  waste  to  use  it  so  and 
not  distribute  its  proceeds  to  the  poor.  Jesus  said,  "For  ye 
have  the  poor  alv/ays  with  you,  and  whensoever  ye  will  ye 
can  do  them  good ;  but  me  ye  havp  not  always."  Here  were 
the  abiding  opportunities  which  seem  never  fully  met,  along- 
side an  opportunity  which  must  be  taken  now  or  never. 
Whether  the  word  o\.  Deuteronomy  (15:11),  "the  poor  will 
never  cease  out  of  the  land,"  is  to  be  taken  as  final  in  the 
social  order  or  not,  it  has  certainly  been  proved  true  up  to  this 
time  in  any  order  we  have  been  able  to  develop,  and  the 
remainder  ©f  the  verse  has  been  pressed  upon  kindly  men 
ever  since :  "Therefore  I  command  thee,  saying,  Thou  shalt 
surely, open  thy  hand  unto  thy  brother,  to  thy  needy,  and  to 
thy  poor,  in  thy  land." 

Some  of  the  finest  lives  in  our  modern  history  have  been 
given  to.  just  this  commonplace  need,  always  here,  never 
showy,  never  seeming  to  abate.  Arnold  Toynbee  felt  the 
pull  of  impoverished  London.  So  did  Charles  Booth.  Jacob 
Riis  bore  the  Five  Points  in  New  York  as  long  as  he  could, 
but  paid  high  tribute  to  men  and  women  not  so  forceful  as  he 
who  had  for  years  been  sharing  the  suffering  of  the  people 
before  he  came  more  correctively  into  the  scene.  Today  as 
never  before  these  everyday,  commonplace  problems  which 
involve  the  unhappiness  of  so  many  people  are  commanding 
the  service,  the  life,  even  the  death,  of  large  numbers  of 
devoted  human  lovers.  This  is  not  the  custom  of  all  men. 
In  a  brief  sketch  of  Professor  Sumner  of  Yale  ("The  Chal- 
lenge of  Facts")  his  father  is  described  as  a  "simple  man 
with  sturdy  common  sense,  who  had  never  been  trained  to 
entertain  any  kind  of  philosophical  abstractions.  His  plan 
was,  if  things  did  not  go  to  suit  him,  to  examine  the  situa- 
tion, see  what  could  be  done,  take  a  new  start,  and  try  again. 
For   instance,   inasmuch  -as   the   custom  in   New  Jersey   was 

78 


V 

SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-c] 

store  pay  and  he  did  not  like  store  pay,  he  moved  to  New 
England  where  he  found  he  could  get  cash."  Doubtless  this 
policy  is  sometimes  necessary,  and  it  may  have  been  wisest 
for  Thomas  Sumner,  but  is  there  not  something  finer  in 
staying  where  the  wrong  conditions  are  and  dealing  with 
them,  for  the  sake  of  the  many  who  cannot  leave  them  and 
go  somewhere  else?  At  any  rate,  hundreds  of  people  are 
deliberately  going  into  the  trying  parts  of  cities  to  share  the 
needs  and  help  to  correct  them. 

We  are  discovering  that  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the 
Christian  faith  to  cure  the  causes  of  these  evils,  so  far  as 
we  may  be  able.  There  is  not  much  that  is  dramatic  about 
it,  for  that  matter  there  is  not  much  that  is  dramatic  about 
any  permanent  work.  We  say  sometimes  that  going  out  to 
mission  fields  is  romantic,  striking  service,  but  the  larger 
service  of  missionary  life  is  not  dramatic  but  just  plain, 
matter-of-course  living  amid  trying  conditions  and  humdrum 
duties.  A  few  things  will  do  to  tell ;  most  things  are  not 
striking  enough  to  be  written  down.  Jesus  said  that  this 
incident  which  the  disciples  thought  so  unusual  would  be 
told  around  the  world,  as  it  has  been,  but  its  largest  effect  has 
been  to  start  people,  not  to  dramatic  things,  but  to  the  every- 
day sacrificial  life  which  is  the  beauty  of  Christian  history. 

II 

This  social  opportunity  determines  a  titan's  estimate  of 
himself  and  his  experiences.  Several  times  the  psalmists  ask 
for  blessings  on  themselves  for  the  sake  of  other  people. 
One  feels  that  if  he  could  have  restored  to  him  the  joy  of 
salvation  which  he  had  lost  through  some  personal  sin,  and 
could  be  upheld  with  a  willing  spirit,  he  could  then  teach 
transgressors  God's  ways  and  help  sinners  to  turn  to  God 
(51:13).  Even  forgiveness  can  be  turned  into  a  challenge 
to  service,  and  anyone  who  ever  tried  to  help  other  people 
when  his  own  conscience  was  troubling  him  knows  how 
difficult  it  is.  The  many  references  to  Abraham  take  us  back 
to  the  familiar  promise  covering  his  life  which  makes  him  a 
blessing  to  many  others  in  being  blessed  himself  (Gen.  12:2, 
3;  22:18).  God's  best  blessings  are  always  given  to  us  as 
trustees  for  investment  in  other  lives.  Many  a  man  has 
felt  more  free  to  ask  blessings  on  his  work  when  he  could 

79 


[VI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

honestly  include  other  people  in  his  results  than  if  he  were 
acting  for  himself.  In  May,  1916,  the  President  of  the 
United  States  said  to  the  National  Press  Club :  "I  tell  you 
this,  gentlemen,  the  only  thing  that  saves  the  world  is  the 
little  handful  of  disinterested  men  that  are  in  it.  I  have 
found  a  few  disinterested  men.  I  wish  I  had  found  more. 
I  can  name  two  or  three  men  with  whom  I  have  conferred 
again  and  again  and  again,  and  I  have  never  caught  them 
by  any  inadvertence  thinking  about  themselves  or  their  own 
interests,  and  I  tie  to  those  men  as  you  would  tie  to  an  anchor. 
I  tie  to  them  as  you  would  tie  to  the  voices  of  conscience 
if  yoU'  could  be  sure  that  you  always  heard  them." 

And  as  the  psalmists  expect  their  blessings  to  serve  others, 
so  they  pray  to  be  kept  steady  for  the  sake  of  others.  The 
two  feelings  blend  in  the  69th  psalm,  which  is  one  long  cry 
of  a  man  who  knows  he  is  in  danger  of  giving  way  under 
the  pull  of  his  own  sin  and  also  of  the  opposition  of  men 
who  are  against  him.  "Let  not  them  that  wait  for  thee  be 
put  to  shame  through  me,  O  Lord  Jehovah  of  hosts ;  let  not 
those  that  seek  thee  be  brought  to  dislionor  through  me,  O 
God  of  Israel"  (69:6).  And  it  does  not  matter  whether  he 
is  pleading  for  fair  treatment  at  Jehovah's  hands,  as  some 
think,  or  for  strength  to  stand  up  to  the  strain  without  giv- 
ing way,  as  seems  more  likely ;  in  either  case  he  has  a  keen 
sense  of  the  social  results  that  are  awaiting  his  experiences. 
Did  you  never  set  out  to  talk  with  a  friend  about  the  claims 
of  religion,  only  to  have  your  mouth  shut  by  the  failure  of 
some  obviously  religious  man  known  to  you  both?  And  have 
you  never  found  yourself  the  only  Christian  in  a  group  and 
felt  a  heavy  burden  of  responsibility  for  what  you  said  and 
did  because  you  knew  they  would  judge  the  whole  class  of 
Christians  by  you? 

It  is  a  familiar  feeling  in  other  lines.  Athletes  contest  for 
their  college,  not  for  themselves  alone.  Most  of  the  criti- 
cisms of  college  life  are  based  on  the  actions  of  a  few  stu- 
dents whom  the  critic  has  known  or  read  about.  It  is  no 
jest  that  a  student  everywhere  represents  his  college.  When 
a  student  wearing  a  college  badge  was  seen  in  a  questionable 
resort  a  group  of  the  other  students  went  to  him  and  took 
off  his  colors,  one  of  them  saying  that  he  was  perfectly  free, 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  to  be  there  himself,  but  he 
could  not  take  the  rest  of  them  there  with  him  if  they  could 

80 


SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-c] 

help  it.  Could  that  be  done,  in  your  judgment,  properly? 
An  old  man,  writing  in  the  71st  psalm,  asked  to  be  kept  safe 
until  he  could  tell  to  the  next  generation  what  life  had  meant 
to  him.  He  counted  himself  bound  in  the  same  bundle  of  life 
with  other  generations.  No  man  ever  holds  steady  for  him- 
self alone ;  other  people  are  steady  because  he  is. 

Ill 

So  these  psalmists  saw  life  as  a  plan  of  God  for  service. 
The  historical  psalms  tell  the  story  of  an  overruling  hand 
that  was  setting  men  up  and  taking  them  down  in  the  interest 
of  social  need.  Joseph  had  his  experiences  because  they 
were  needed  in  the  service  of  his  group,  and  they  moved 
on  under  the  will  of  God  (105:17-21).  Moses  and  Aaron 
were  not  on  their  own  errand,  but  on  the  mission  of  service 
(105:26).  David  was  taken  from  the  sheepfolds  for  the 
sake  of  the  work  he  was  to  do  (78:70-72).  Everywhere 
appears  the  perennial  mystery  of  the  sacrifice  which  the  indi- 
vidual makes  for  the  group  and  then  the  group  for  the  whole. 
Vicarious  suffering  is  everywhere,  and  vicarious  suffering 
has  always  to  be  voluntary.  So  it  is  here.  As  soon  as  these 
writers  see  it,  they  rejoice  in  it  for  themselves  and  their 
children.  They  show  the  same  feeling  about  their  joy;  it 
must  be  shared.  The  24th  ^salm  is  commonly  counted  to 
have  been  written  for  the  time  when  David  had  the  ark  of 
God  brought  from  the  home  of  Obed-edom  to  Jerusalem, 
when  the  account  says  he  danced  before  the  Lord  with  all 
his  might,  full  of  enthusiasm  and  joy.  Dean  Stanley  ("His- 
tory of  the  Jewish  Church,"  Vol.  H,  p.  94)  says  it  was  "the 
greatest  day  of  his  life."  But  one  of  the  obvious  beauties  of 
the  psalm  is  its  construction  for  antiphonal  use,  voice  answer- 
ing to  voice.  There  are  times  in  life  for  solos,  but  there 
are  times  and  there  is  music  when  one  voice  seems  wholly 
inadequate.  Quartets  are  out  of  place  in  the  Hallelujah 
Chorus.  Self  asks  to  be  lost  in  the  whole  at  such  times. 
It  lives  for  the  group.  Men  who  have  not  known  such  times 
are  to  be  pitied. 

Ofie  essential  mark  of  a  man's  real  life  work  is  that  it  sup- 
plies the  greatest  need  the  man  can  see  which  he  has  the 
capacity  to  supply.  Until  he  finds  that  work,  he  may  have  a 
"job"  and  may  be  making  a  living;  but  when   he  thinks  in 


[VI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

such  large  terms,  he  begins  to  do  a  man's  work.  Figures  are 
current  which  indicate  that  97  per  cent  of  all  business  men 
in  America  fail  at  some  time  in  their  business  career.  Most 
of  them  recover  and  make  at  least  measurable  successes,  but 
the  majority  who  fail  do  it  because  they  are  misfits.  They 
have  not  found  their  place  and  often  the  failure  shows  them 
their  place.  No  man  is  in  his  place  until  he  can  realize  him- 
self as  supplying  part  of  the  real  need  of  the  world.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  said  there  are  only  two  just  reasons  for 
the  choice  of  any  way  in  life;  "the  first  is  inbred  taste  in 
choosing,  the  second  some  high  utility  in  the  industry 
selected."  It  is  that  high  utility  that  gives  a  man  the  larg- 
est sense  of  the  value  of  life.  Along  with  it  is  the  feeling  of 
fellowship  with  other  men  in  doing  his  life  work.  One's 
brethren  and  companions  have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  enthusi- 
asm in  service  (122:8).  They  constitute  an  added  motive 
for  activity  (22:22).  "The  American  laborer  who  does  his 
work  feeling  that  he  is  a  partner  will  do  a  third  more  work 
in  a  day  than  laborers  will  in  other  countries  where  the 
fight-psychology  possesses  the  people,  and  where  employers 
and  employes  are  all  busy  in  fighting  each  other's  interests 
in  the  shops,  and  going  home  at  night  to  hold  meetings  to 
think  how  to  fight  better  in  the  morning"  (Gerald  Stanley 
Lee,  "We,"  p.  562). 

But  we  have  had  in  America  in  recent  years  a  merchant 
whose  life  was  lived  on  this  iDasis — Mr.  Robert  C.  Ogden, 
leader  in  the  Southern  Education  Board.  "In  the  best  sense 
of  the  word  he  was  an  organization  man,  always  working 
with  the  structural  elements  in  the  life  of  the  community. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  learned  to  work  in  harness,  but  he 
believed  in  the  kind  of  harness  that  would  give  each  man 
scope  to  pull  his  best."  His  biography  is  written  in  a  book, 
but  it  is  more  fully  written  in  the  service  he  rendered  with 
his  life,  finding  a  need  and  gathering  around  him  a  body  of 
people  who  could  be  inspired  to  help  in  supplying  it  and 
then  giving  himself  generously  to  it. 

Nor  must  we  let  this  seem  apart  from  our  religion.  It  is 
God  who  sets  the  solitary  in  families  and  who  demands  that 
each  life  take  its  share  of  the  world's  load.  The  sense  of 
the  psalmists  that  the  great  men  of  their  history  were  only 
working  out  a  plan  has  sustained  many  a  man  in  smaller  place 
since  that  time.     Feeling  God's  concern  in  the  social  group 

82 


SELF  FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GROUP  [VI-c] 

which  we  are  set  to  serve  is  no  affectation,  but  a  very  real 
inspiration.    James  Russell  Lowell  said  that  Wendell  Phillips 

"Saw  God  standing  upon  the  weaker  side ; 
.     .     .    Therefore  he  went 
And  humbly  joined  him  to  the  weaker  part, 
Kanatic  named,  and  fool,  yet  well  content 
So  he  could  be  the  nearer  to  God's  heairt, 
And   feel  its   solemn   pulses   sending  blood 
Through  all  the  widespread  veins  of  endless  good." 

The  attributes  of  the  .true  member  of  the  society  of  God's 
choice  in  the  72nd  psalm  are  almost  all  social,  and  when  we 
serve  the  needs  of  the  group  we  are  serving  Him  to  whom 
our  goodness  cannot  extend.  Jesus'  forecast  of  the  future 
and  the  attitude  which  eternal  justice  will  take  toward  human 
life  is  all  connected  with  service  or  neglect  of  service  of  the 
needy  here  (Matt.  25:31-46).  The  moral  of  Coleridge's 
Ancient  Mariner  is  deeply  true : 

"He    prayeth    well    who   .loveth    well 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast. 
He  prayeth   best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small ; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us 
He  made  and  loveth  all." 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Starting  with  the  case  of  Thomas  Sumner  given  in  the 
Comment  for  the  Week,  try  to  work  out  some  general  prin- 
ciples which  will  help  to  determine  when  a  man  may  serve 
the  social  group  best  by  leaving  a  bad  situation  rather  than 
by  remaining  in  it  to  resist  the  evil  in  it. 

Think  over  your  campus  or  community  and  see  some  of 
the  special  lines  of  unselfish  service  now  being  followed,  or 
followed  in  the  past  and  productive  now.  This  may  help  to 
make  living  for  the  group  a  more  normal  thing. 


83 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Challenge  of  the  Social  Order 

In  this  study  we  pass  from  thouglit  of  the  social  group 
nearest  to  us,  the  group  of  our  own  kind,  to  a  wider  field, 
that  social  order  which  includes  our  o\yn  and  all  other  groups 
and  which  is  steadily  being  broadened  in  the  minds  of 
thoughtful  men  until  it  carries  with  it  the  burden  of  responsi- 
bility for  all  men.  It  was  forecast  centuries  ago  by  a  Latin 
poet  who  said,  **I  am  a  man,  and  I  count  nothing  that  per- 
tains to  humanity  alien  to  myself."  But  his  thought  of  hu- 
manity was  not  so  wide  as  that  of  Jesus,  who  set  the  stakes 
for  his  disciples  at  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  (Acts 
i:8). 

DAILY  READINGS 
Seventh  Week,  First  Day 

We  have  heard  with  our  ears,  O  God, 

Our  fathers  have  told  us, 

What  work  thou  didst  in  their  days. 

In  the  days  of  old. 

Thou  didst  drive  out  the  nations  with  thy  hand; 

But  them  thou  didst  plant: 

Thou   didst   afflict   the   peoples; 

But  them  thou  didst  spread  abroad. 

For  they   gat   not  the   land  in   possession  by   their   own 

sword, 
Neither  did  their  own  arm  save  them; 
But  thy  right  hand,  and  thine  arm,  and  the  light  of  thy 

countenance. 
Because  thou  wast  favorable  unto  them. 
Thou  art  my  King,  O  God: 
Command  deliverance  for  Jacob.  — Psalm   44:  1-4. 

What  attitude  ought  we  to  take  toward  the  past,  specially 
that  part  of  the  social  order  which  has  come  most  directly 
to  our  own  lives?  We  do  not  like  talk  of  "the  good  old 
days,"  nor  suggestions  that  the  golden  age  is  past.     Do  you 

84 


CHALLENGE  OF  S0CL4L  ORDER        [VII-2] 

like  the  citizens  of  your  town  to  tell  verj^  often  how  much 
better  the  earlier  days  were  in  the  place?  But  neither 
do  we  like  the  contemptuous  dismissal  of  the  past  which  is 
common  now,  as  college  students  do  not  like  alumni  to  depre- 
ciate the  early  conditions  under  which  they  were  trained. 
Mr.  Gladstone  once  spoke  of  the  conditions  of  the  present 
as  differing  from  a  better  early  time.  An  opponent  chal- 
lenged him  to  say  what  earlier  time  he  meant,  and  when 
Mr.  Gladstone  mentioned  two  centuries  ago,  said,  "Oh,  yes ; 
the  time  when  they  burned  witches !"  The  answer  was 
rather  shrewd  than  satisfactory,  for  at  the  point  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  contention  those  times  might  have  been  better. 
There  are  bad  items  in  any  past  period,  but  there  are  good 
items  too.  Part  of  our  history  challenges  us  to  our  finest 
lives.  God  has  been  plainly  in  it  and  there  are  obligations  on 
us  who  have  inherited  it.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  psalm  is 
frank  acknowledgment  of  failure.  As  for  yourself,  are  you 
the  kind  of  American  you  ought  to  he  in  loyalty  to  the  his- 
tory of  America t  Are  you  living  by  the  best  of  it?  And 
as  a  Christian  are  you  as  fine  as  you  ought  to  he  in  view  of 
the  history  of  the  Christian  faith?  The  social  order  which 
we  have  inherited  challenges  us. 

Seventh  Week,  Second  Day 

If  we  have  forgotten  the  name  of  our  God, 

Or  spread  forth  our  hands  to  a  strange  God; 

Will  not  God  search  this  out? 

For  he  knoweth  the  secrets  of  the  heart. 

Yea,  for  thy  sake  are  we  killed  all  the  day  long; 

We  are  accounted  as  sheep  for  the  slaughter. 

Awake,  why  sleepest  thou,  O  Lord? 

Arise,  cast  us  not  off  for  ever.       , 

Wherefore  hidest  thou  thy  face, 

And  forgettest  our  affliction  and  our  oppression? 

For  our  soul  is  bowed  down  to  the  dust: 

Our  body  cleaveth  unto  the  earth. 

Rise  up  for  our  help, 

And  redeem  us  for  thy  lovingkindness'  sake. 

— Psalm  44:20-26. 

The  admission  of  the  presence  of  evils  in  the  social  order, 
running  through  the  rank  and  file  of  us,  is  always  easy,  so 
easy  that  we  can  jest  about  them.    Some  of  us  even  talk  about 

85 


[VII-3]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

evils  as  inevitable ;  they  continue  if  men  are  in  social  rela- 
tions at  all.  There  has  never  been  a  wrong  done  among  men 
which  was  not  described  by  some  people  as  belonging  in 
the  nature  of  things,  to  continue  "as  long  as  men  are  men." 
The  logic  of  that  we  hardly  realize,  for  it  means  that  evils 
are  essential  to  a  moral  order,  and  that  some  men  have  to 
be  immoral  so  that  other  men  may  be  moral,  which  is 
monstrous  in  a  rational  to  say  nothing  of  a  moral  order, 
whatever  philosophy  supports  it.  The  existence  of  a  social 
order  cannot  require  the  existence  of  the  things  that  make  it 
impossible.  And  the  worst  feature  of  the  acceptance  of 
social  disorders  as  necessary  is  that  it  cuts  the  nerve  of  our 
opposition  to  them.  A  prime  requisite  of  a  helpful  place  in 
the  social  order  is  that  these  evils  shall  hurt  us,  that  we  shall 
recognize  the  inevitable  punishment  which  they  bring  on  any 
social  order.  Mordecai  believed  in  God  strongly  enough  to 
expect  that  deliverance  would  come  for  Israel  in  some  other 
way  if  Esther  did  not  do  her  share  toward  deliverance,  but 
he  saw  plainly  enough  that  she  could  not  escape  by  standing 
aside  (Esther  4:14).  God  may  be  able  to  take  care  of  the 
social  order  without  us,  but  what  ought  to  come  to  us  if  we 
stand  aside  and  let  it  go  without  our  care? 

Seventh  Week,  Third  Day 

Come,  and  see  the  works  of  God; 

He  is  terrible  in  his  doing  toward  the  children  of  men. 

He  turned  the  sea  into  dry  land; 

They  went  through  the  river  on  foot: 

There  did  we  rejoice  in  him. 

He  ruleth  by  his  might  for  ever; 

His  eyes  observe  the  nations: 

Let  not  the  rebellious  exalt  themselves. 

Oh  bless  our  God,  ye  peoples, 

And  make  the  voice  of  his  praise  to  be  heard; 

Who  holdeth  our  soul  in  life, 

And  suffereth  not  our  feet  to  be  moved. 

For  thou,  O  God,  hast  proved  us: 

Thou  hast  tried  us,  as  silver  is  tried. — Psalm  66:5-10. 

Pessimists  are  men  who  either  do  not  see  the  saving  forces 
at  work  in  society  or  do  not  believe  in  their  effectiveness. 
They  see  the  5,000  hungry  people  so  clearly  that  they  either 
overlook  the  presence  of  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  or  else 

^6 


I 


CHALLENGE  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER        [VII-4] 

think  of  the  absurdity  of  setting  them  over  against  the  need 
(Matt.  14:15-21).  Forces  of  evil  are  generally  more  stri- 
dent and  conspicuous  than  any  others.  They  constitute 
"news"  and  furnish  more  attractive  centers  for  the  play  of 
imagination  than  anything  else.  So  the  social  order  seems 
to  many  good  people  doomed.  To  people  who  do  not  try  to 
be  good  people,  the  only  way  to  approve  the  present  order  is 
to  adopt  a  lower  standard  of  social  requirement  and  be 
satisfied  with  attaining  it.  Anything  more  looks  like  dreams 
of  Utopia,  But  that  leaves  out  God.  Atheists  have  to  whistle 
steadily  to  keep  up  courage  and  a  high  ideal  at  the  same  time, 
and  they  have  to  do  it  whether  they  are  speculative  atheists 
like  Clifford  or  practical  atheists  like  many  Christians  who 
believe  that  God  exists  but  do  not  expect  him  to  count  largely 
in  common  affairs.  Without  God,  the  forces  of  evil  often 
look  greater  than  forces  for  good.  Only  eyes  open  to  see  his 
forces  can  understand  the  situation  (II  Kings  6:15-17).  It 
docs  not  take  as  many  good  people  to  save  a  situation  as  it 
takes  bad  people  to  ruin  it.  Sodom  would  not  have  needed 
a  majority  vote  to  keep  it  from  destruction  (Genesis  18)  ; 
a  small  body  of  the  right  kind  of  people  could  have  done  it. 
Are  you  one,  at  least,  of  that  group,  large  or  small? 

Seventh  Week,  Fourth  Day 

Social  wrongs  of  all  sorts  are  to  be  set  down  as  folly. 
Falsehood,  unfairness  between  man  and  man,  injustice, 
exploitation  of  the  weak,  are  only  seemingly  shrewd;  they 
are  actually  foolish,  and  the  universe,  God's  universe,  is 
against  folly  wherever  it  appears.  Children  cannot  be  worked 
in  mines  and  mills  without  more  cost  than  gain  to  the  social 
order.  Men  who  use  up  their  capital  may  make  a  good  show- 
ing, but  the  nature  of  things  is  against  them,  and  the  nature 
of  things  always  takes  right  of  way  when  it  is  ready.  A 
social  order  cannot  use  up  its  capital  without  paying  for  it 
in  God's  universe.  No  land  can  be  glorious  until  it  has  a 
controlling  group  of  people  who  hold  right  relation  to  God 
and  his  moral  order.  It  need  not  be  the  majority;  no  evil 
was  ever  yet  corrected  until  a  moral  minority  had  shown  how 
readily  one  can  chase  a  thousand  and  two  put  ten  thousand 
to  flight.  Are  you  ready  to  be  one. of  the  minority  that  can 
get  God's  zuill  done? 

87 


[VII-5]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

I  will  hear  what  God  Jehovah  will  speak; 

For  he  will  speak  peace  unto  his  people,  and  to  his  saints: 

But  let  them  not  turn  again  to  folly. 

Surely  his  salvation  is  nigh  them  that  fear  him, 

That  glory  may  dwell  in  our  land. 

Mercy  and  truth  are  met  together; 

Righteousness  and  peace  have  kissed  each  other. 

Truth  springeth  out  of  the  earth; 

And  righteousness  hath  looked  down  from  heaven. 

Yea,  Jehovah  will  give  that  which  is  good; 

And  our  land  shall  yield  its  increase. 

Righteousness  shall  go  before  him, 

And  shall  make  his  footsteps  a  way  to  walk  in. 

— Psalm  85:8-13. 

The  harmony  of  virtues  in  the  sound  social  order  is  well 
worded  here.  Mercy  and  truth — not  mercy  that  is  flabby 
and  false  because  it  cannot  bear  to  be  honest ;  not  truth  that 
is  brutal  because  it  must  be  candid.  Righteousness  and  peace 
— not  righteousness  that  keeps  up  a  continual  and  unneces- 
sary strife  for  strife's  sake;  not  peace  that  asks  only  quiet  at 
any  cost.  So  far  as  you  know  the  social  order  around  your- 
self,  which  of   the   virtues   is  more  needed  today? 


Seventh  Week,  Fifth  Day 

There  is  no  abstract  righteousness,  no  abstract  justice. 
Only  moral  beings  can  hold  moral  relations  or  display  moral 
traits.  If  the  essential  factors  of  the  universe  are  moral 
ones,  it  is  because  there  is  a  moral  Being  whose  throne  is 
founded  on  them. 

Righteousness    and    justice    are    the    foundation    of    thy 

throne: 
Lovingkindness  and  truth  go  before  thy  face. 
Blessed  is  the  people  that  know  the  joyful  sound; 
They  walk,  O  Jehovah,  in  the  light  of  thy  countenance. 
In  thy  name  do  they  rejoice  all  the  day; 
And  in  thy  righteousness  are  they  exalted. 
For  thou  art  the  glory  of  their  strength; 
And  in  thy  favor  our  horn  shall  be  exalted. 
For  our  shield  belongeth  unto  Jehovah; 
And  our  king  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 

— Psalm  89:  14-18. 


CHALLENGE  OF  S0CL4L  ORDER        [VII-6] 

As  people  make  up  the  social  order,  so  their  traits  are  at 
the  last  the  only  ones  the  social  order  has.  Gustave  Le  Bon 
long  ago  showed  that  the  crowd  displays  traits  and  adopts 
practices  that  no  single  person  in  the  crowd  all  by  himself 
would  display  or  adopt ;  but  that  only  means  that  men  in 
pronounced  social  relations  release  certain  restraints  which 
are  on  them  in  purely  personal  conditions.  The  traits  of 
the  crowd  are  actually  the  traits  of  the  people  who  make  it 
up,  magnified  or  deflected  by  the  presence  of  others.  And 
there  will  be  no  change  in  the  traits  of  the  crowd  until  some 
of  the  men  in  it,  perhaps  only  one  man  if  he  is  strong  enough, 
set  out  to  have  things  different.  Somebody  has  to  care  before 
cruelty  ceases  in  our  penal  system.  Somebody  has  to  hate  dis- 
honesty before  truth  becomes  regnant.  It  is  in  the  triumph 
of  such  people  that  a  social  order  is  safe,  for  in  their  tri- 
umph God  gains  his  victory.  The  final  defence  of  any  nation 
is  its  relation  to  God.  Several  of  the  psalms  speak  of  God 
as  the  rock  and  fortress,  or  the  strength  and  shield  of 
nations.  Here  the  saying  is  different.  The  nation  has  its 
shield,  but  it  belongs  to  God  (so  also  47:9,  where  the  shields 
of  the  whole  earth  are  ascribed  to  him)  ;  it  has  its  king,  but 
he  is  a  vassal  of  the  Holy  One.  All  defences  run  back  for 
effectiveness  to  God." 

Seventh  Week,  Sixth  Day 

What  man  is  he  that  desireth  life, 

And  loveth  many  days,  that  he  may  see  good? 

Keep  thy  tongue  from  evil, 

And  thy  lips   from   speaking  guile. 

Depart  from  evil,  and  do  good; 

Seek  peace,  and  pursue  it. 

The  eyes  of  Jehovah  are  toward  the  righteous, 

And  his  ears  are  open  unto  their  cry. 

The  face  of  Jehovah  is  against  them  that  do  evil. 

To  cut  off  the  remembrance  of  them  from  the  earth. 

— Psalm  34:  12-16. 

Here  is  a  condensed  program  for  an  abiding  life.  It 
breaks  into  detail  the  vaguer  words  righteousness  and  mercy 
which  we  have  noted  already.  The  program  is  not  merely  for 
permanence,  but  leads  to  a  climax  of  good.  Some  lives  are 
not  worth  continuing;  they  constitute  one  of  the  problems  of 

89 


[VII-7]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

immortality.  Once  in  a  while  a  man  declares  he  does  not 
care  for  a  future  life ;  this  one  has  been  more  than  enough 
for  him.  Do  you  consider  the  declaration  wholly  genuine? 
Is  there  any  man  who  does  not  desire  life,  or  is  it  only  cer- 
tain things  in  life  that  he  does  not  desire?  Are  suicides 
trying  to  escape  life  or  only  some  apparently  unavoidable 
conditions  in  life?  All  the  items  of  this  program  are  social 
and  atfect  our  widest  relations.  The  first  one  illustrates 
that.  What  we  say  goes  farther  than  anything  we  do. 
Maintaining  communication  with  men  on  the  basis  of  right- 
eousness and  honesty  is  a  first  necessity  in  the  widening  circle 
of  modern  life.  Less  and  less  can  the  social  order  be  main- 
tained on  the  basis  of  legal  documents,  safeguarded  against 
the  dishonesty  of  men.  We  are  having  to  trust  each  other 
more  and  more.  The  existence  of  a  few  men  who  cannot  be 
trusted  when  their  word  is  passed  is  an  annoyance  to  the 
larger  body  of  men  who  are  keeping  their  tongues  from  evil 
and  their  lips  from  deceit.  Letting  evil  alone  and  doing  good 
is  an  item  that  comes  more  slowly,  but  the  social  order  is 
waiting  for  safety  until  it  does  come.  The  whole  world  has 
recently  been  pleading  for  men  in  large  and  small  relations 
who  love  peace  enough  to  go  after  it.  ^Would  not  this  pro- 
gram fit  into  present  needs  to  a  nicety? 

Seventh  Week,  Seventh  Day 

One  generation  shall  laud  thy  works  to  another, 

And  shall  declare  thy  mighty  acts. 

Of  the  glorious  majesty  of  thine  honor, 

And  of  thy  wondrous  works,  will  I  meditate. 

And  men  shall  speak  of  the  might  of  thy  terrible  acts; 

And  I  will   declare  thy  greatness. 

They  shall  utter  the  memory  of  thy  great  goodness, 

And  shall  sing  of  thy  righteousness. 

Jehovah  is  gracious,  and  merciful; 

Slow  to  anger,  and  of  great  lovingkindness. 

Jehovah  is  good  to  all; 

And  his  tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works. 

All  thy  works  shall  give  thanks  unto  thee,  O  Jehovah; 

And  thy  saints  shall  bless  thee. 

— Psalm    145:4-10. 

There  are  two  extensions  of  our  thought  of  the  social  order 
that   are   specially   worth   making   in   our   day.     The   race   is 

90 


CHALLENGE  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER        [VII-c] 

integrated  more  and  more  in  space,  around  the  world.  All 
men  of  all  races  are  factors  in  it.  It  is  not  because  they  are 
Americans  or  Europeans  or  Asiatics,  but  because  they  are 
men,  that  they  have  to  do  with  each  other.  There  are  doubt- 
less some  fairly  deep-running  differences,  but  the  unities  of 
the  race,  clear  underneath  the  surface,  are  the  things  that 
are  emerging  more  and  more.  Men  who  talk  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  races  understanding  each  other  are  behind  the 
times.  East  and  West  may  not  meet  at  some  points,  but  there 
is  "neither  border  nor  breed  nor  birth"  when  strong  -  men 
meet  "though  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth."  They 
find  a  deep  unity  in  their  common  relation  to  God,  whose 
tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works,  and  not  over  only  some 
of  them.  And  that  integration  has  time  relations  also,  runs 
backwards  and  forwards.  The  social  order  is  a  product  of^ 
generations  past  and  is  producing  itself  anew  for  the  genera- 
tions yet  to  come.  We  cannot  understand  any  tree  without 
some  knowledge  of  its  roots,  nor  without  some  knowledge 
of  its  fruits.  All  of  us  are  posterity  and  all  of  us  are 
ancestors.  And  over  it  all,  both  in  space  and  time,  is  God, 
being  obeyed  or  disregarded,  but  never  inactive  in  it.  Jesus 
saw  the  natural  order  wholly  under- his  eye  (Matt.  6:26-30; 
10:29),  and  argued  from  it  to  his  constant  care  for  the 
human  order  as  well  (Matt.  5:45,  etc.).  We  are  to  conceive 
of  the  right  social  order  as  one  in  which  God's  will  shall  be 
done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  We  help  toward  that  order 
when  we  do  his  will  ourselves. 


COMMENT  FOR  THE  WE^^K 

I 

The  widening  of  the  sense  of  social  responsibility  is  one 
of  the  interesting  studies  of  history.  It  begins  with  a  feel- 
ing for  the  community,  the  small  group,  whose  interests  are 
thought  of  not  as  held  in  common  with  the  larger  group,  but 
as  in  opposition  to  it.  The  few  are  bound  together  against 
the  many.  That  is  the  cut-throat  competitive  spirit  of  some 
fields  of  operation  today.  In  political  history  the  community 
was  gradually  widened  to  include  states,  still  small,  but  with 
sufficiently  unified  interests   to   make  them  wiUing  to   stand 

91 


[VII-c]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

together  against  wider  opposition.  The  forming  of  the 
United  States,  or  of  the  British  or  German  Empire,  illus- 
trates the  spread  of  the  spirit  of  fellowship  and  responsi- 
bility. That  it  was  not  easy  to  make  this  wider  responsibility 
real  to  the  rank  and  file  of  people,  our  own  early  history 
and  the  efforts  of  Bismarck  plainly  show.  It  was  counted 
quite  impossible  that  a  group  of  people  could  be  trusted  to 
have  any  other  than  selfish  motives.  Plenty  of  sapient  people 
still  insist  that  the  principle  holds  good.  They  want  to  know 
first  of  all  what  their  own  particular  group  is  to  expect  out 
of  any  general  proposal.  Congressional  trades  between  sec- 
tions, you-vote-for-my-bill-and-I-will-vote-for-your-bill,  are 
remnants  of  that  same  spirit.  And  this  larger  union  into  a 
kind  of  magnified  state  is  as  far  as. most  of  us  have  gotten. 

When  the  next  and  inevitable  step  is  proposed,  we  Have 
the  same  old  arguments  against  it  that  have  been  urged 
against  every  advance  of  the  past.  But  the  step  is  sure  to  be 
taken  by  some  approaching  generation  if  we  refuse  to  take 
it.  As  we  have  advanced  from  the  community  to  the  state 
and  from  the  state  to  the  nation,  we  must  go  on  from  the 
nation  to  the  world.  We  must  learn  that  the  interests  of 
all  men  are  involved  in  the  one  social  order,  that  national 
interests  are  not  to  be  held  in  opposition  to  the  interests  of 
other  nations  but  in  fellowship  with  them.  We  have  learned 
it  in  ethics  and  in  communities,  in  spite  of  the  very  protests 
now  raised  against  the  fuller  proposal  of  the  Christian  spirit. 
An  American  statesman  has  voiced  it  for  us  by  saying,  "Here 
is  the  world  humanity  has  made.  Will  you  take  full  citizen- 
ship in  it?  It  is  a  large  world  and  a  round  world,  and  men 
grow  human  by  seeing  all  its  play  of  force  and  folly." 

Of  this  larger  sense  of  the  total  social  order  there  are  only 
shadowy  traces  in  the  psalms,  but  it  is  not  lacking.  It  shows 
in  the  feeling  that  the  heathen  are  under  Jehovah's  power  as 
truly  as  Israel.  The  gods  of  the  heathen  are  idols  (96:5)  ; 
Jehovah  is  the  only  true  God  for  the  world.  Because  he  is 
God,  all  the  peoples  of  the  world  are  to  rejoice  (97:1,  6; 
47:  1-9;  67:4).  Other  nations  may  oppose  his  chosen  people 
and  his  plans,  but  they  cannot  prosper  in  it  {66 :  3 ;  108 :  7-9)  ; 
indeed,  what  they  do  is  merely  amusing  to  God,  who  has 
set  his  king  on  his  throne  already  (2:4-6).  And  the  time 
will  come  when  all  nations  will  gladly  recognize  his  lordship 
over  them    (68:31;   47:8,  9;   87:4-6).     Meanwhile,   all  men 

92 


CHALLENGE  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER       [VII-cI 

everywhere  are  included  in  the  works  of  Jehovah  (103:22; 
150:6).  The  psalms  come  from  a  troubled  time,  and  the 
surrounding  nations  are  thought  of  generally  as  enemies  who 
wish  harm  to  Israel.  There  is  a  constant  sense,  of  invasion 
either  as  having  just  occurred  (85)  or  as  imminent  (79). 
And  yet  the  invasion  of  the  nations  then  was  as  nothing  to 
the  invasion  which  the  whole  world  is  receiving  now,  every 
nation  seeming  to  overflow  upon  every  other  nation. 


II 

The  moral  conditions  which  must  obtain  in  the  larger 
social  order  are  only  those  with  which  we  are  already  familiar 
in  every  well  constructed  social  group.  Fundamentally,  the 
social  order  must  be  made  moral  in  practice  as  it  is  in  God's 
purpose.  Otherwise  it  is  not  worthy  of  God's  world.  Fra. 
Lippo  Lippi  spoke  for  many  when  he  said : 

"This  world  's  no  blot  for  us, 
Nor  blank ;   it  means  intensely  and  it  means  good ; 
To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drink," 

Yet  only  moral  beings  can  be  moral,  and  the  very  existence 
of  the  social  order  is  a  challenge  to  us  who  live  in  the  midst 
of  it,  to  be  and  do  our  best  in  its  behalf.  Mercy  and  truth, 
righteousness  and  peace  (85  :  10)  are  the  foundation  virtues, 
and  only  men  can  realize  them.  The  social  order  may  lack 
any  one  of  them.  What  is  the  largest  lack  of  our  penal 
system,  if  it  is  not  mercy?  Thirty  years  ago  the  jailer  an- 
swered me  when  I  commented  on  the  hard  conditions  of  the 
prison  at  Blackwell's  Island,  "Well,  young  feller,  these  men 
ain't  here  as  a  reward  of  merit."  That  is  a  legitimate  re- 
minder, and  we  will  not  gain  by  making  our  penal  system 
soft  and  infirm.  But  the  new  methods  of  treating  ofi^enders 
deserve  a  trial,  since  the  old  methods  have  failed  so  dismally 
to  check  crime  or  to  change  criminals.  Mercy  that  is  right- 
eous will  not  be  flabby  and  ineffective.  What  is  the  largest 
lack  of  our  industrial  relations,  if  it  is  not  justice?  Justice 
on  both  sides,  of  course,  rigid  righteousness  shot  through 
with  fraternal  regard  on  both  sides.  In  the  beginning  of  a 
labor    controversy   on   the    Pacific   coast   in   the   summer   of 

93 


IVII-c]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

1916,  Secretary  Wilson  wrote  to  the  officers  of  a  labor  union 
whose  men  were  accused  of  violating  a  definite  contract  in 
quitting  work :  "The  American  labor  union  has  built  up  an 
enviable  reputation  for  living  up  to  its  contracts,  even  when 
■  it  has  had  to  forego  temporary  advantages  in  order  to  do  so. 
No  union  can  long  exert  an  influence  for  good  which  delib- 
erately violates  its  contracts  for,  temporary  gain.  The  aver- 
age working  man  has  little  else  to  lose  than  his  honor  and 
integrity;  when  that  is  gone,  he  is  in  a  very  sorry  plight 
indeed."  Every  man,  employer  or  laborer,  is  in  a  sorry 
plight  without  the  justice  which  establishes  the  social  order. 
And  it  was  this  injustice  which  employers  can  show  toward 
laborers  that  so  stirred  Amos  that  he  pronounced  one  of  his 
most  terrible  prophecies  against  it  (Amos  8:4-10),  a  feeHng 
that  is  shared  by  the  psalmists  in  many  expressions. 

Or  take  the  social  problem  of  child  labor,  which  John 
Spargo  calls  *'the  bitter  cry  of  the  children."  Here  the  lack 
is  again  of  those  fundamental  moral  virtues  which  must  be 
enforced  on  unwilling  men  and  practiced  by  all  willing  ones. 
Or  the  evil  which  John  Penman  calls  "the  challenge  of  the 
Church" — poverty.  It  is  a  complicated  problem,  which  only 
light  thinkers  dismiss  with  a  wave  of  the  hand.  Once  we 
said  with  all  confidence  that  no  man  is  poor  but  the  man  who 
deserves  to  be  because  of  some  personal  defect;  but  that  is 
not  true  today.  There  are  social  forces  involved  which  are 
actually  not  under  individual  control.  The  corrective  of 
those  forces  is,  again,  these  same  moral  virtues  which  we 
must  practice  if  we  are  willing  and  propagate  among  those 
who  are  not  willing  until  they  win  their  way,  until  they  have 
power  as  they  already  have  authority. 

But  moral  the  order  must  become  because  God  is  concerned 
with  it.  The  psalmists  are  perfectly  clear  on  that.  Whims 
do  not  count  and  nothing  is  arbitrary.  When  wrongs  occur, 
they  are  very  mystifying,  but  there  is  no  sort  of  doubt  of 
God's  power,  when  his  plan  is  ready,  to  take  hold  on  them 
and  crush  or  cure.  Wicked  men  flourish  like  a  green  tree  in 
its  native  soil,  but  they  disappear,  for  all  that  (37:35,  36). 
Looking  out  on  the  world  is  baffling,  no  doubt,  because  evil 
seems  to  prosper,  but  if  one  will  go  to  the  sanctuary  and 
get  a  renewed  sense  of  God,  things  look  very  different  {JZ  '- 
16-22).  The  very  purpose  of  God's  dealing  with  men  is 
that  they  may  keep  his  statutes  and  observe  his  laws   (105: 

94 


CHALLENGE  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER        [VII-o] 

45).  The  issue  of  the  battle  is  not  in  the  slightest  doubt. 
Unless  we  want  utter  defeat  for  our  projects,  we  must  bring 
them  into  submission  to  moral  demands. 

Every  one  of  us  has  to  take  sides  in  that  fight  and  give 
account  in  the  Day  of  the  Lord.  Standing  aside  may  be 
worse  than  taking  part  on  the  wrong  side.  The  Jewish  Tal- 
mud teaches  that  a  secret  sin  is  an  impertinent  attempt  to 
oust  God  from  the  universe — it  implies  that  something  can 
be  done  where  he  does  not  see  it,  or  else  that  it  does  not 
matter  if  he  does  see  it.  It  contains  a  law  declaring  that 
a  thief  should  be  punished  more  severel}'"  than  a  robber,  be- 
cause the  robber  treats  God  and  man  alike,  defying  both 
openly,  while  the  thief  is  afraid  of  men,  but  not  afraid  of 
God.  Not  helping  to  make  the  social  order  a  moral  one  is 
acting  as  though  it  does  not  matter  wdiat  kind  of  order  there 
is  in  God's  world.  It  is  disregarding  him  and  his  rights. 
Dante  tells  in  the  opening  part  of  the  Inferno  that  he  saw 
outside  the  gates  of  hell  a  wailing  company,  denied  entrance 
everywhere  and  doomed  to  misery  and  isolation  wherever 
they  were.  He  asked  who  they  could  be  and  was  told  that 
they  were  the  people  who  on  earth  had  never  been  willing  to 
take  sides  on  anything  except  with  a  view  to  their  own  inter- 
ests. They  were  the  pusillanimous,  who  had  let  great  causes 
go  unbefriended  while  looking  out  for  their  own  safety  and 
comfort.  They  had  responded  to  no  challenge  of  their  social 
order.  And  here  in  the  place  where  moral  balances  were 
struck,  they  had  no  place.  Hell  could  not  admit  them  lest  the 
damned  get  glory  from  them ;  they  had  no  virtue  which  pur- 
gatory could  bring  out ;  heaven  could  not  admit  them  for  lack 
of  any  value.  They  had  stood  aside.  And  moral  judgment 
accounts  Dante  right  in  his  placing  of  them.  They  are  use- 
less in  the  universe. 

Ill 

The  psalmists  feel  not  merely  the  inspiration  of  their  his- 
tory but  its  challenge.  Men  with  such  a  history  as  they  had 
could  not  in  fairness  be  just  any  kind  of  men  they  might 
happen  to  care  to  be.  And  since  we  inherit  all  the  history 
there  is,  inherit  it  increasingly  as  the  world  becomes  the 
home  of  us  all,  whatever  our  race,  the  challenge  of  history 
is  on  us  all.    The  historical  psalms  are  a  wise  way  of  binding 

95 


I.VII-C]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

the  nation  into  unity  with  its  past.  History  can  always  be 
sung  better  than  it  can  be  read.  Psalms  like  the  105th  and 
io6th  and  78th  constitute  a  challenge  to  the  people  of  the 
latter  day.  So  does  every  telling  of  the  story  of  a  nation. 
We  are  not  isolated  units.  We  are  in  a  stream  that  comes 
to  us  heavily  freighted.  Our  social  order  has  the  labor  of 
the  ages  in  it,  and  we  cannot  in  moral  fairness  act  as  though 
we  were  beginning  anew. 

The  evils  which  we  have  inherited  demand  our  correction. 
We  are  not  to  take  them  for  granted  or  to  act  as  though 
they  must  remain.  There  are  no  necessary  evils  in  a  world 
where  God  is  and  where  there  are  people  enough  to  take  their 
stand  against  them.  Man  does  not  need  to  oppress  man 
"beneath  God's  liberal  sun."  Corruption  in  politics  is  not 
a  necessity  of  human  relationship.  Dishonesty  and  self- 
seeking  in  commerce  are  not  inherent  in  trade.  Nothing  that 
is  wrong  has  any  claim  to  immortality  in  the  social  order. 
Evil  men  furnish  their  own  doom  (37:12-13).  Their 
weapons  cut  their  own  hands.  Every  bad  man  is  holding  the 
l^lade  end  of  his  sword  and  when  he  strikes  with  it,  his  own 
blood  flows.  The  things  that  ruin  are  doomed  and  the  social 
order  challenges  us  as  God's  believers  to  see  to  their  ending. 

So  the  heroisms  of  history  challenge  us  to  be  worthy  of 
them.  Moses  and  Aaron  are  still  factors  in  life  (99:6). 
Joseph  and  David  are  part  of  our  example.  The  things  that 
happened  to  the  fathers  happened  for  our  example  and  God 
used  them  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  better  things  in  store 
for  us  (Heb.  11:40).  Men  have  died  for  the  things  which 
are  now  matters  of  course  to  us.  Careless  acceptance  of  such 
sacrifices  is  eminently  unworthy.  If  there  is  anything  to  us, 
anything  fine,  anything  inherently  heroic,  it  is  challenged  by 
the  virtues  of  the  social  order  which  we  have  inherited. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

A  paper  recently  said :  "The  sooner  we  recognize  that 
nations  are  like  individuals  in  having  only  selfish  motives, 
the  sooner  we  will  reach  safe  international  relations."  Is 
that  your  opinion  ?  A  recent  political  speaker  said :  "Not 
America  first,  but  America  only."     Consider  this  sentiment. 

As  you  see  the  social  order  of  today,  is  its  chief  weakness 
a  lack  of  mercy  or  of  truth,  of  justice  or  of  gentleness? 

96 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Group  Within  the  Social  Order 

DAILY  READINGS 

Eighth  Week,  First  Day 

There  will  always  be  groups  within  groups  and  there  al- 
ways should  be.  There  are  intimacies  which  enrich  life  but 
which  cannot  be  very  widely  extended.  This  exquisite  little 
psalm  suggests  how  much  it  means  to  have  these  inner  groups 
bound  closely  together.  It  seems  to  have  been  born  out  of 
some  experience  of  reunion,  when  an  old  division  had  been 
healed,  and  everyone  was  rejoicing  that  the  trouble  was  over 
and  brothers  were  brotherly  again. 

Behold,  how^  good  and  how  pleasant  it  is 

For  brethren  to  dw^ell  together  in  unity! 

It  is  like  the  precious  oil  upon  the  head, 

That  ran  down  upon  the  beard, 

Even  Aaron's  beard; 

That  came  down  upon  the  skirt  of  his  garments; 

Like  the  dew  of  Hermon, 

That  Cometh  down  upon  the  mountains  of  Zion: 

For  there  Jehovah  commanded  the  blessing,  ^ 

Even  life  for  evermore. 

— Psalm   133. 
I 

No  divisions  run  deeper  or  are  more  hurtful  than  those 
within  groups  whose  bonds  are  naturally  most  intimate. 
Family  quarrels,  community  quarrels,  church  quarrels  are  the 
bitterest  of  all  because  they  tear  the  closest  ties.  And  the 
very  first  service  any  man  can  render  to  the  social  order  is 
to  see  to  it  that  the  social  group  of  which  he  is  part  is  kept 
right  within  itself.  Men  who  want  to  see  the  whole  Chris- 
tian  Church   united   will  not  help   it  by   splitting  their   own 

97 


[VIII-2]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

denomination,  but  by  developing  within  it  a  spirit  of  unity. 
College  spirit  cannot  be  corrected  while  society  spirit  is 
divided.  The  inner  groups  are  not  to  be  maintained  for  their 
own  sakes,  and  the  time  may  come  with  any  one  of  them 
when  it  ought  to  be  abandoned,  but  while  it  exists  it  ought 
to  be  kept  right  within.  The  two  figures  used  suggest  the 
method  of  such  unity.  The  oil  was  poured  on  Aaron's  head 
(Lev.  8:12),  but  it  ran  with  its  fragrance  and  sanctifying 
influence  to  his  feet.  The  dew  gathered  first  on  Hermon, 
but  it  was  blown  by  the  currents  of  air  down  on  lower 
Mount  Zion  because  it  had  gathered  on  the  higher  peak. 
This  unity  comes  from  the  top  down.  Where  do  you  stand 
in  your  social  group?  If  you  are  at  the  top,  your  duty  is 
clear;  if  you  are  not  there,  ought  you  not  to  be? 

Eighth  Week,  Second  Day 

Blessed  is  the  man  whom  thou  choosest,  and  causest  to 

approach  unto  thee, 
That  he  may  dwell  in  thy  courts: 

We  shall  be  satisfied  with  the  goodness  of  thy  house. 
Thy  holy  temple. 

By  terrible  things  thou  wilt  answer  us  in  righteousness, 
O  God  of  our  salvation; 

Thou  that  art  the  confidence  of  all  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
And  of  them  that  are  afar  off  upon  the  sea; 
Who  by  his  strength  setteth  fast  the  mountains. 
Being  girded  about  with  might; 
Who  stilleth  the  roaring  of  the  seas. 
The  roaring  of  their  waves, 
And  the  tumult  of  the  peoples. 
They  also  that  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  are  afraid  at 

thy  tokens: 
Thou  makest  the  outgoings  of  the  morning  and  evening 
,        to  rejoice. 

— Psalm    65 :  4-8. 

Notice  the  broadening  of  thought  in  the  opening  part  of 
this  passage.  First,  singular  number — the  man  whom  Thou 
choosest ;  then,  plural — we  shall  be  satisfied ;  then,  universal 
— all  the  ends  of  the  earth.  That  is  the  direction  the  move- 
ment ought  to  take — an  individual  fitting  into  a  group  for 
the  sake  of  the  whole.  Note  a  similar  extension  in  three 
New  Testament  verses:   Who  loved  me    (Gal.  2:20),  Who 

98 


GROUP  WITHIN  SOCIAL  ORDER      [VIII-3] 

loveth  us  (Rev.  i  :  5),  so  loved  the  world  (John  3:  16).  How 
many  of  the  groups  to  which  you  belong  provoke  that  kind 
of  movement?  Your  church,  your  college  society,  your  club, 
has  taken  you  into  it  as  an  individual.  Does  it  give  you  a 
sense  of  larger  responsibility  or  does  it  seem  to  exist  for  its 
own  sake?  Are  you  of  any  importance  in  your  group;  is 
your  group  of  any  importance  to  the  social  order?  The  unity 
of  the  movement  is  found  in  the  relation  of  all  of  it  to  God, 
who  maintains  the  conditions  under  which  it  is  possible. 
Jesus  gathered  individuals  into  a  group  of  twelve  and  a  few 
more,  and  then  gave  them  a  sense  of  world  relations,  because 
they  held  relation  personally  and  as  a  group  to  him.  Notice 
also  the  nouns  :  goodness,  righteousness,  confidence,  strength. 
How  do  these  elements  enter  into  the  service  which  a  group 
can  render  to  the  whole?  If  any  group  holds  right  relation 
to  God,  is  it  not  sure  to  contribute  at  least  one  of  these  traits 
to  the  social  order? 


Eighth  Week,  Third  Day 

Not  unto  us,  O  Jehovah,  not  unto  us, 

But  unto  thy  name  give  glory, 

For  thy  lovingkindness,  and  for  thy  truth's  sake. 

Wherefore  should  the  nations  say, 

Where  is  nov/  their  God? 

But  our  God  is  in  the  heavens: 

He  hath  done  whatsoever  he  pleased.  .  .  . 

Jehovah  hath  been  mindful  of  us;  he  will  bless  us: 

He  will  bless  the  house  of  Israel; 

He  will  bless  the  house  of  Aaron. 

He  will  bless  them  that  fear  Jehovah, 

Both  small  and  great. 

— Psalm   115:1-3,    12,   13. 

Here  is  a  writer  with  a  keen  sense  of  the  difference  between 
the  group  to  which  he  belongs  and  the  surrounding  groups, 
in  the  social  order  of  the  world.  He  feels  the  superiority  of 
his  group,  its  higher  ideals,  its  finer  purposes,  its  greater 
strength.  There  need  be  no  sin  or  false  pride  in  that.  It 
would  be  affectation  of  humility  for  some  groups  not  to 
know  that  much  about  themselves,  even  though  they  may 
wisely  say  as  little  about  it  as  the  writer  does  here.  There 
are   college   groups   that   are   better    than    others ;    there    are 

99 


tVIII-4]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

community  groups  superior  to  others ;  there  are  family 
strains  finer  than  others ;  there  are  churches  more  effective 
than  others.  Recognizing  that  is  merely  being  honest.  Yet 
anybody  knows  the  danger  of  it. 

Being  self-important  about  superiority  reveals  lack  of 
sense  of  humor,  which  is  the  power  to  see  things  in  their 
right  proportion.  This  psalm  sees  things  as  they  are.  Later 
in  it,  there  runs  a  contrast  between  the  idols  of  the  inferior 
races  and  the  God  of  the  Hebrews.  One  soldier  said  to 
another,  "Change  generals  with  us,  and  we  will  fight  as  well 
as  you  do."  The  world  might  say  to  Christendom,  "Change 
^ods  with  us  and  we  will  lead  as  you  lead." 

Eighth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

If  it  had  not  been  Jehovah  who  was  on  our  side, 

Let  Israel  now  say, 

If  it  had  not  been  Jehovah  who  was  on  our  side, 

When  men  rose  up  against  us; 

Then  they  had  swallowed  us  up  alive. 

When  their  wrath  was  kindled  against  us: 

Then  the  waters  had  overwhelmed  us, 

The  stream  had  gone  over  our  soul; 

Then  the  proud  waters  had  gone  over  our  soul. 

Blessed  be  Jehovah, 

Who  hath  not  given  us  as  a  prey  to  their  teeth. 

Our  soul  is   escaped   as  a  bird  out   of  the   snare  of  the 

fowlers : 
The  snare  is  broken,  and  we  are  escaped. 
Our  help  is  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  * 

Who  made  heaven  and  earth. 

— Psalm   124. 

Here  is  a  group  that  has  had  to  stand  for  itself  against  the 
larger  forces  of  the  other  groups  about  it.  It  is  a  psalm  of 
some  notable  national  deliverance.  The  saying  that  God  is 
pn  the  side  of  the  heaviest  guns  is  not  true.  The  Cove- 
nanters of  Scotland,  the  Huguenots  of  France,  the  Waldenses 
of  Italy  have  outlasted  the  larger  forces  that  were  against 
them.  The  persistence  of  moral  minorities  is  a  perfectly 
familiar  fact  of  history.  The  Hebrews  themselves,  when 
they  were  a  factor  in  Eastern  history,  are  a  good  illustration 
of  the  way  in  which  a  small  group  with  inherent  value  can 
persist  in  spite  of  tremendous  odds  against  them.     JVe  tell 

100 


GROUP  WITHIN  SOCIAL  ORDER      [VIII-5] 

ourselves  to  he  sure  we  are  right  and  then  to  go  ahead.  If  any 
group  will  see  to  it  that  it  is  right,  God  will  see  to  it  that  it 
goes  ahead.  We  need  to  keep  that  in  mind  when  we  take  our 
places  in  groups  that  have  hard  tasks  before  them,  groups 
like  reform  agencies  or  societies  for  the  correction  of  any 
abuses.  They  have  a  hard  row  before  them,  doubtless;  it 
seems  in  the  plan  of  the  world  that  things  worth  doing 
should  have  elements  of  difficulty  about  them;  but  a  moral 
minority  is  still  the  biggest  force  in  any  situation.  It  does 
not  get  swallowed  up  when  floods  rise  out  of  the  social 
order.  The  universe,  God's  universe,  is  with  it.  Lincoln's 
saying  about  being  on  God's  side  of  questions  is  profoundly 
true. 

Eighth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

By  the  rivers  of  Babylon, 

There  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept. 

When  we  remembered  Zion. 

Upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof 

We  hanged  up  our  harps. 

For  there  they  that  led  us  caDtive  required  of  us  songs, 

And  they  that  wasted  us  required  of  us  mirth,  saying. 

Sing  us  one  of  the  songs  of  Zion. 

How  shall  we  sing  Jehovah's  song 

In  a  foreign  land? 

If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem, 

Let  my  right  hand  forget  her  skill. 

Let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth, 

If  I  remember  thee  not; 

If  I  prefer  not  Jerusalem 

Above  my  chief  joy. 

— Psalm  137: 1-6. 

A  bit  from  an  exile  psalm.  The  danger  here  was  that  the 
identity  of  the  group  might  be  swallowed  up  in  the  larger 
and  less  worthy  whole  that  surrounded  it.  There  are  doubt- 
less times  when  a  group  has  rendered  its  service  and  ought 
to  be  absorbed  into  the  order  which  it  has  made  sufficiently 
like  itself.  But  when  men  do  honestly  stand  for  something 
which  is  essential,  then  it  demands  courage  to  maintain  their 
separateness  for  that  purpose.  Yielding  vital  things  for  the 
sake  of  accommodation  to  surroundings  is  easy — and  ruin- 
ous.   Jesus  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  salt  losing  its  saltness, 

lOI 


[VIII-6]       PSALM'S  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

the  very  thing  that  distinguished  it  from  i)?^  surroundings, 
in  which  case  it  had  to  be  treated  Hke  its  surroundings ;  it 
had  become  Hke  dirt,  let  it  be  trampled  on  like  dirt  (Matt. 
5:13).  If  college  graduates  are  unwilling  to  maintain  the 
ideals  that  distinguish  their  group  and  prefer  to  settle  down 
to  the  drab  life  from  which  they  ought  to  be  distinguished,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  so  many  people  think  there  is  nothing  in  a 
college  education.  If  a  church  adopts  practices  common  to 
the  unchristian  life  about  it,  and  refuses  to  maintain  its  dis- 
tinctive features  in  religion,  the  world  will  refuse  to  see  any 
particular  meaning  in  religion.  Here  also  arises  the  ques- 
tion about  denominations  among'  Christians.  How  far  are 
they  justified  and  when  does  one  of  them  lose  the  right  to 
exist?  Is  your  own  denomination  serving  a  sufficiently  dis- 
tinctive purpose  to  justify  its  permanence,  or  has  it  caught 
the  color  of  all  the  rest? 

Eighth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

Oh  give  thanks  unto  Jehovah,  call  upon  his  name; 

Make  known  among  the  peoples  his  doings. 

Sing  unto  him,  sing  praises  unto  him; 

Talk  ye  of  all  his  marvellous  v^orks. 

Glory  ye  in  his  holy  name: 

Let  the  heart  of  them,  rejoice  that  seek  Jehovah. 

Seek  ye  Jehovah  and  his  strength; 

Seek  his  face  evermore.  . 

Remember  his  marvellous  works  that  he  hath  done, 

His  wonders,  and  the  judgments  of  his  'mouth, 

O  ye  seed  of  Abraham  his  servant, 

Ye  children  of  Jacob,  his  chosen  ones. 

He  is  Jehovah  our  God: 

His  judgments  are  in  all  the  earth. 

— Psalm  105: 1-7. 

Here  is  an  abiding  sense  of  mission.  The  group  does  not 
exist  for  itself  or  its  own  glory,  but  for  "all  the  peoples" 
and  the  glory  of  the  forces  of  God  which  have  made  it  what 
it  is.  There  are  no  favorites  vv^hom  God  wishes  to  bless  while 
he  prefers  to  neglect  others.  Probably  most  of  the  writers  of 
the  psalms  did  not  see  it  so  clearly  as  we  can  see  it  in  the 
logic  of  their  writings,  but  one  of  their  devoted  believers 
saw  it  years  after  under  the  influence  of  Jesus,  when  he 
declared  that  he  could  now  see  that  God  is  no  respecter  of 

102 


GROUP  WITHIN  SOCIAL  ORDER      [VIII-7] 

persons,  but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  Him  and  worketh 
righteousness  is  acceptable  to  Him  (Acts  10:35,  36).  There 
had  been  no  change  in  God  since  the  earhest  times.  He  had 
blessed  men  who  feared  him,  so  that  men  everywhere  might 
learn  to  fear  him.  When  men  had  sought  him,  he  responded, 
so  that  men  everywhere  might  seek  him.  That  is  actually  the 
way  history  works.  No  nation  wins  freedom  without  writing 
a  story  for  other  nations,  seeking  freedom,  to  read — not  to 
imitate,  but  to  emulate.  In  the  movement  for  larger  liberty 
in  China  the  names  of  Washington  and  Cavour  and  Gari- 
baldi were  much  on  the  lips  of  3^oung  men.  No  city  ever 
worked  out  a  civic  problem  or  corrected  an  evil  without  help- 
ing other  cities  to  do  the  same  thing.  No  community  ever 
developed  along  right  lines  without  suggesting  better  things 
to  other  communities.     The  group  helps  the  order. 

Eighth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

God  be  merciful  unto  us,  and  bless  us, 

And  cause  his  face  to  shine  upon  us; 

That  thy  way  may  be  known  upon  earth, 

Thy  salvation  among  all  nations. 

Let  the  peoples  praise  thee,  O  God; 

Let  all  the  peoples  praise  thee. 

Oh  let  the  nations  be  glad  and  sing  for  joy; 

For  thou  wilt  judge  the  peoples  with  equity, 

And  govern  the  nations  upon  earth.  .  .  . 

The  earth  hath  yielded  its  increase: 

God,  even  our  own  God,  will  bless  us. 

God  will  bless  us; 

And  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  fear  him. 

— Psalm  67:1-4,  6,  7. 

Here  the  vicarious  blessing  is  emphasized  strongly.  God 
is  asked  to  be  merciful  to  us,  to  bless  us,  to  cause  his  face  to 
shine  on  us,  not  for  our  own  sakes,  but  that  his  way  may  be 
known  on  earth  and  his  salvation  among  all  nations.  There 
is  a  note  of  arrogance  in  the  calm  way  in  which  we  often 
appropriate  our  blessings,  as  though  they  had  caught  on  the 
hooks  of  our  merits  and  could  not  get  loose.  Nations  are 
important,  but  not  so  important  as  the  world,  and  when  a 
nation  is  blessed,  it  is  only  poor  national  pride  that  leads  its 
people  to  think  that  the  blessing  is  intended  finally  for  itself 

103 


[VIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

alone.  There  is  plenty  of  that.  Note  it  in  the  contemptuous 
attitude  taken  by  so  many  people  toward  those  of  other 
nations.  In  a  smaller  way  it  is  noticeable  in  inner  groups  in 
a  college.  Intercollegiate  victories  are  taken  as  victories  of 
a  society  or  of  some  little  coterie,  instead  of  the  victories  of 
the  whole.  The  society  comes  to  think  of  itself  in  terms 
of  itself  and  not  of  the  whole,  in  whose  behalf  it  should  have 
won  its  victories.  God's  hand  is  large  enough  to  hold  bless- 
ings for  the  world.  His  method  is  to  use  the  inner  group  as 
a  channel  of  blessing  for  the  whole  and  as  argument  to  the 
whole  for  loyalty  to  him. 


COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

Every  social  group,  whether  arbitrary  or  natural,  is  part 
of  the  social  order  and  holds  relation  to  the  whole.  The 
"whole"  which  it  serves  may  be  only  relatively  larger  than 
itself  and  in  turn  an  element  in  a  larger  group,  for  no 
group  of  any  sort  can  draw  a  line  around  itself  without 
touching  other  groups  and  entering  into  some  sort  of  rela- 
tion to  them.  And  all  such  groups  carry  a  measure  of 
responsibility  for  the  whole  of  which  they  are  part.  For  one 
thing,  no  group  of  any  sort,  natural  or  artificial,  can  be  main- 
tained except  by  using  the  energy  of  its  members.  The  rea- 
son so  many  societies  of  various  sorts  fail  in  college  or  com- 
munities or  in  larger  circles  is  that  there  are  not  enough 
people  who  are  willing  to  give  time  and  strength  to  them. 
Any  society  can  live  if  a  small  group  of  people  will  pay  the 
price  for  it.  Jesus  risked  a  whole  world  plan  on  a  mere 
handful  of  people  who  could  be  brought  to  think  so  much  of 
the  project  that  it  would  not  occur  to  them  to  let  it  die.  That 
is  one  of  the  large  reasons  why  his  project  has  not  died,  in 
spite  of  plenty  of  things  that  might  have  killed  it.  But  if 
a  group  uses  up  the  strength  and  power  of  members  of  ihe 
larger  group,  it  ought  in  fairness  to  see  to  it  that  benefits 
return  to  that  larger  group  in  some  way.  That  is  only 
familiar  social  theory  based  on  the  Christian  idea  of  human 
responsibility. 

Looking  back  on  Jewish  history  we  can  see  how  plainly  it 
was  God's  thought  that  the  Hebrews  should  be  a  group 
within    the    whole    for   the    sake    of    the    whole.      Often   the 

104 


GROUP  WITHIN  SOCIAL  ORDER      [VIII-c] 

people  themselves  no  more  saw  that  than  little  groups  of 
people  anywhere  see  their  larger  meaning.  The  Hebrews 
thought  of  themselves  as  having  special  value  to  God  on 
their  own  account  alone.  Once  in  a  while  their  prophets 
and  singers  saw  the  larger  truth  which  they  have  taught 
all  the  rest  of  us.  As  children  of  Abraham  they  were  to  be 
blessed  and  through  them  all  the  famihes  of  the  earth  were 
to  be  blessed.  Often  in  the  psalms  are  hints  of  consciousness 
of  the  surrounding  peoples  as  those  who  were  yet  to  be 
brought  to  the  same  blessing  as  the  Hebrews  (65 : 4,  5 ; 
67:  1-4;  48:2,  10).  They  saw  that  the  Hebrews  were  not  the 
social  order ;  they  were  a  group  within  that  order  and  they 
were  meant  to  face  outward  toward  that  order  and  be  a 
blessing  to  it.  That  they  should  have  seen  the  purpose  in 
all  its  fulness  is  hardly  to  have  been  expected,  and  it  waited 
for  men  like  Paul  and  Peter  and  John  who  had  been  under 
the  spell  of  Christ  to  see  it.  Even  so,  we  have  been  slow 
enough  to  catch  such  a  vision.  The  smug  way  in  which  we 
accept  blessings  as  belonging  to  us  for  some  supposed  merit 
abiding  in  us  suggests  how  much  we  have  still  to  learn. 


The  demand  that  the  group  maintain  itself  for  the  sake  of 
the  service  it  has  to  render  appears  in  all  the  exile  psalms. 
The  peril  v/hich  these  more  thoughtful  men  faced  was  that 
they  might  be  lost  in  the  new  surroundings  and  lose  the 
identity  which  constituted  their  value  to  the  order.  They 
recalled  the  time  in  earlier  history  when  that  very  thing  had 
occurred  and  the  nation  had  suffered  for  it.  It  was  in  the 
settlement  days  in  Canaan  (106:34-42),  and  they  did  not 
keep  themselves  from  the  evils  about  them,  but  gradually 
yielded  to  them,  and  like  salt  that  had  lost  its  saltiness  they 
were  trampled  under  foot.  These  exilic  singers  saw  the 
danger  that  they  might  be  tarred  with  the  pitch  of  their  sur- 
roundings. They  were  compelled  to  mix  with  their  captors, 
yet  they  were  to  retain  the  essential  thing  that  made  them  a 
people.  They  had  to  live  in  the  world  but  keep  unspotted 
from  it  (James  1:27).  All  the  exile  psalms  bear  testimony 
to  the  distress  of  a  group  sharply  out  of  place  in  a  social 
order  where  they  are  trying  to  keep  right. 

105 


[VIlI-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

It  will  always  be  difficult  for  some  of  us  to  understand  the 
depression  and  dejection  that  marks  these  exilic  psalms.  The 
Hebrews  were  not  bound  slaves,  not  slaves  at  all  in  our  usual 
sense  of  the  word.  They  were  not  confined,  they  were  not 
impoverished.  Instead,  they  became  officials,  like  Daniel  and 
his  three  friends,  like  Nehemiah  and  doubtless  many  others. 
Some  of  them  certainly  became  rich  and  prosperous,  and 
many  of  these  settled  down  contentedly  and  never  discussed 
returning  to  their  land.  Yet  many  of  them,  on  the  other  hand, 
pined  for  the  land  from  which  they  had  been  carried  away. 
Why  could  they  not  be  contented?  Partly  it  was  for  love 
of  liberty.  A  white  man  met  a  negro  some  years  after  the 
war,  a  negro  plainly  poor  and  ill-kept  though  hardworking, 
and  asked  him  if  he  did  not  regret  his  release  from  slavery; 
he  was  now  hungry  at  times,  then  he  always  had  food ;  he 
had  poor  clothing  now,  then  he  was  clothed  with  all  he 
needed ;  now  he  had  only  a  hut  to  shelter  him,  then  he  had 
a  far  better  cabin.  The  negro  waved  it  all  aside:  "No,  sah ; 
Ah  doan  regrets  it ;  de  place  is  dere  yet  and  you-all  kin 
have  it  if  you-all  wants  it ;  Ah  wants  to  be  free."  There  are 
people  Vv'ho  will  say,  ''The  more  fool  he,"  but  other  people 
will  understand.  Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone.  There 
are  things  which  the  soul  demands  which  are'  not  supplied  by 
prosperity.  It  is  this  that  underlies  so  much  of  the  desire 
for  reform,  even  in  cities  whose  bank  clearings  are  steadily 
increasing  'and  whose  streets  are  being  paved  by  the  mile 
each  year.  It  is  the  pull  of  higher  things,  better  education, 
finer  home  life,  purer  citizenship,  that  is  felt  by  the  group 
which  must  often  stand  against  the  reigning  social  order. 
The  Hebrew  exiles  wanted  some  better  things  than  prosperity. 

But  chiefly  these  men  felt  the  shame  of  being  in  exile  at 
all.  They  had  failed  God  and  they  must  have  a  chance  to  be 
true  to  him  again.  Study  Daniel's  pra3^er  in  his  ninth 
chapter,  or  Nehemiah's  in  his  first  chapter  or  the  137th  psalm, 
and  it  comes  out  that  this  is  what  hurt  these  finer  souls. 
They  had  been  given  a  place  in  the  w^orld,  a  place  which  the 
world  needed  to  have  them  take,  a  place  which  God's  plan 
needed  to  have  them  take,  and  they  had  failed  the  whole 
situation.  They  might  never  be  able  to  go  back  to  Jerusalem, 
but  they  meant  to  keep  their  desire  for  it  alive  (137:5,  6). 
What  a  man  can  get  is  one  thing;  what  he  prefers  is  zvhat 
makes   him.     Keep   your   preferences   alive   and   your   expe- 

106 


GROUP  WITHIN  SOCIAL  ORDER      [VIII-c] 

riencesitwill  never  narrow  you.     As  Browning  makes  David 
say,  not  what  we  do,  but  what  we  would  do,  exalts  us. 

There  is  always  danger  of  a  group  failing  at  that  point. 
Many  a  society  organized  to  protest  against  some  abuse  on 
a  campus  or  in  a  community  has  presently  slipped  into  the 
same  evil  against  which  it  protested.  It  is  hard  not  to  cap- 
italize our  ideals,  to  make  amusement  with  our  highest  hopes 
for  people  who  have  no  such  hopes  and  so  to  cheapen  them 
for  ourselves.  The  exiles  were  psychologically  correct  in 
refusing  to  sin^  their  songs  in  Babylon  to  show  mirth  (137: 
3,  4).  No  man  can  use  his  highest  hopes  for  cheap  purposes 
without  sacrificing  them.  What  is  the  actual  effect  of  ama- 
teur plays  that  ridicule  the  supposed  ideals  of  the  town, 
that  take  off  its  religious  or  moral  life?  Do  they  make  it 
easier  to  be  sincerely  religious  and  deeply  honorable,  or 
harder?  And  .if  such  things  result  in  the  cheapening  of  life, 
that  only  illustrates  again  the  fact  that  the  group  is  easily 
overcome  by  its  environment,  taking  the  color  of  its  sur- 
roundings.    Salt  has  become  common  earth. 


II 

Maintaining  this  distinctive  value  is  all  the  harder  when 
we  are  surrounded  with  other  groups  which  have  the  same 
responsibility  and  have  abandoned  it.  The  little  123rd  psalm 
is  one  of  the  "songs  of  ascent,"  connected  with  the  pilgrim- 
ages to  Jerusalem  undertaken  under  command  of  religious 
duty  by  all  the  pious  Jews.  Along  the  way  were  villages  or 
settlements  of  various  sizes  whose  people  had  only  contempt 
for  those  who  still  followed  so  trying  a  custom.  The  pil- 
grims as  they  went  on  found  themselves  sneered  at  by  others 
who  ought  themselves  to  have  been  on  the  pilgrimage.  Their 
souls  were  exceedingly  filled  with  the  contempt  of  those  who 
were  at  ease,  who  had  abandoned  the  difficulties  of  duty 
and  had  only  a  sneer  for  others  who  persisted  in  them.  Or 
else,  those  who  sneered  were  the  heathen  settlers  among 
whom  they  had  to  pass,  who  would  condemn  so  stupid  a 
custom  as  the  pilgrimage.  Few  men,  known  to  any  consider- 
able body  of  friends,  ever  persistently  followed  the  custom  of 
church  going  in  a  university  or  in  a  city  without  having  to 
face  the  same  thing.    The  name  of  the  Methodist  Church  is 

107 


[VIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

the  outcome  of  fellow  students'  contempt  for  the  gpoup  of 
Oxford  students  who  persisted  in  being  religious  and  main- 
taining their   group   testimony  before  the  larger  group. 

At  the  root  of  sudi  sneering  is  the  desire  for  the  easy  way 
of  living.  Religion  makes  demands  and  they  are  irksome  to 
some  men.  Once  adopt  the  principle  that  one  ought  not  to 
be  asked  to  do  anything  he  does  not  feel  like  doing,  or  that 
he  ought  to  reduce  such  demands  to  the  minimum,  and  you 
have  the  whole  argument  against  religion  in  a  phrase.  Most 
men  find  it  easier  to  lounge  around  a  club  ^unday  morning 
than  to  go  to  church,  easier  to  loaf  and  chat  in  negligee  than 
to  rake  a  place  in  a  committee  or  a  Bible  class,  and  they  pity 
the  poor  dubs  who  do  not  see  it  so.  And  while  there  are 
always  some  men  who  can  pass  that  off  with  a  jest,  it  goes  to 
the  very  roots  of  the  matter  with  other  men.  It  was  not  a 
sword  that  upset  Peter  and  made  him  deny  Christ ;  it  was 
being  quizzed  by  a  servant  girl  (Mark  14:66-70).  Most  of 
us  would  rather  be  thought  bad  than  foolish.  We  would 
rather  be  denounced  than  ridiculed.  And  it  is  under  just 
such  conditions  that  we  have  to  be  on  our  guard  that  we 
maintain  the  thing  that  makes  our  existence  worth  while. 
Have  you  ever  known  any  compromises  in  such  things  that 
have  resulted  well  for  either  side  of  the  difference? 


Ill 

The  difficulty  is  increased  when  those  who  are  equipped  for 
helping  will  not  do  so.  The  hint  of  the  dereliction  of 
Ephraim  (78:9-11)  is  worth  noticing:  "The  children  of 
Ephraim,  being  armed  and  carrying  bows,  turned  back  in 
the  day  of  battle."  Ready  for  war,  they  left  their  brethren  in 
the  lurch.  It  is  the  defection  of  the  equipped  that  endangers 
everything  good  in  the  world.  The  marvel  is  that  good 
causes  prosper  as  they  do  when  so  many  of  them  go  short- 
handed,  while  people  armed  and  bearing  bows  turn  back 
when  the  strain  comes.  College  people  are  as  faithful  as  the 
average,  and  yet  there  are  enough  college  graduates,  equipped 
to  make  great  warfare  against  all  the  social  evils,  to  win 
the  victory  ten  times  over,  who  have  settled  down  into  the 
comfortable  ways  of  the  world  and  are  valueless  when  the 
need  arises.     They  are  not  merely  losses  on  their   own  ac- 

108 


GROUP  WITHIN  SOCIAL  ORDER      [VIII-c] 

count;  they  make  everything  harder  for  the  men  who  keep 
in  the  thick  of  the  fight.  Hopes  are  built  upon  them  which 
hurt  when  they  fail. 

IV 

The  largest  group  for  social  good  ought  to  be  the  Church. 
We  must  oppose  any  effort  to  make  social  service  a  side 
issue  of  the  Church's  life.  Speaking  of  it  as  a  permissible 
duty,  depending  on  whether  strength  and  time  are  left  after 
the  gospel  work  is  done,  is  sheer  underreading  of  the  terms 
of  the  gospel.  The  old  question  persists  as  it  did  among  the 
Hebrews :  Is  the  Church  a  body  of  people  rescued  from  the 
•world  for  their  own  sakes,  blessed  because  God  loves  them 
peculiarly  and  alone ;  or  is  it  a  body  of  rescued  people  called 
together  to  do  the  work  of  rescuing,  the  whole  earth  to  profit 
by  God's  blessing  of  them?  A  refuge  or  a  place  of  inspira- 
tion for  world  service — which  is  the  Church?  Is  Mount 
Zion  the  home  of  the  faithful  nation  or  the  joy  of  the  whole 
earth  (48:2)?  And  if  it  is  for  the  whole  earth,  then  for 
what  phases  of  the  life  of  the  earth,  for  all  of  them  or  for 
only  some  of  them? 

Does  it  not  make  any  difference  to  religion  where  and  how 
a  man  works,  whether  children  are  educated  or  abused, 
whether  immigrants  are  humanely  or  brutally  treated, 
whether  men  live  in  houses  or  in  warrens?  Life  is  too 
closely  interwoven  in  all  its  interests  to  be  split  up  so  that 
the  Church  may  be  exonerated  from  concern  for  the  whole 
of  it.  Not  as  a  side  issue,  but  as  part  of  its  very  central 
duty,  the  Church  must  take  its  relation  to  the  larger  social 
order  within  which  it  is  placed.  All  the  world  and  every- 
thing in  the  world  is  part  of  its  business.  Its  line  of  care 
and  its  methods  of  correction  will  differ  in  different  fields 
of  need,  but  as  a  social  group  it  must  recognize  its  relation 
to  the  social  order  in  God's  world. 

Jesus  had  in  hand  a  great  enterprise  which  even  he  did 
not  attempt  to  accomplish  alone.  He  had  his  own  unique 
part  to  do,  and  that  he  did.  But  the  enterprise  itself  was 
laid  on  social  lines.  At  the  very  beginning  he  formed  a 
group  out  of  which  the  Church  has  grown.  That  group  he 
set  squarely  down  in  the  world,  knowing  what  their  dangers 
were  and  not  asking  to  have  them  escape,  but  asking  only 
that  they  be  kept  true  to  the  task  and  in  the  spirit  needed  for 

109 


[VIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

the  enterprise.  He  wanted  them  to  be  salt  that  would  stay 
salty,  lights  that  would  stay  lighted,  Christians  who  would 
stay  Christian.  In  that  spirit  he  turned  them  to  the  enter- 
prise, setting  the  world  before  them  as  their  field.  When 
they  fail  or  when  evils  come  in  the  social  group  which  they 
have  thus  far  mastered,  the  shame  is  not  theirs  alone;  it  is 
the  shame  of  the  enterprise  (79:9;  115:2).  The  worst 
thing  about  war  in  Chrietendom,  or  labor  riots  or  drunken- 
ness or  harlotry,  is  not  its  inherent  badness ;  it  is  the  right  it 
gives  to  non-Christian  nations  to  sneer  at  the  God  whose 
worship  we  profess  in  Christendom.  If  this  inner  group  of 
those  who  know  Christ  had  kept  themselves  as  they  should, 
if  they  had  pushed  out  their  influence  as  they  should,  could 
these  things  have  occurred? 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Consider  the  mutual  relations  that  should  exist  between  a 
college  society  or  fraternity  or  other  inner  group  and  the 
institution  as  a  whole,  constituting  what  we  are  here  calling 
the  social  order.  Go  on  to  consider  the  relations  that  should 
exist  between  the  institution  considered  as  a  social  group 
and  the  general  life  of  the  world,  conceived  as  a  larger  social 
order. 

What  is  the  result  of  conceiving  these  relations  as  one- 
sided? 

Under  what  conditions  would  it  be  wise  to  serve  the  inter- 
ests of  the  group  even  at  the  cost  of  the  order,  and  when 
would  the  opposite  course  be  wise?  In  general,  so  far  as 
you  have  observed,  which  problem  presents  itself  oftener? 


1 10 


CHAPTER  IX 
» 

God  in  the  Social  Order 


The  writers  of  the  psalms,  like  all  the  Hebrews  of  their 
times,  have  little  to  say  about  formal  religion,  and  much 
to  say  about  God,  but  they  mean  the  same  thing.  To  them 
religion  was  simply  holding  relation  to  God  and  religions 
were  measured  by  the  God  to  whom  relation  -was  held. 
Hegel's  familiar  statement  of  religion  would  have  been  fairly 
satisfactory  to  them :  "Religion  is  a  relation — a  living  and  true 
connection  between  God  and  man." 


DAILY  READINGS 
Ninth  Week,  First  Day 

God  is  our  refuge  and  strength, 

A  very  present  help  in  trouble. 

Therefore  will  we  not  fear,  though  the  earth  do  change. 

And  though  the  mountains  be  shaken  into  the  heart  of 

the  seas; 
Though  the  waters  thereof  roar  and  be  troubled, 
Though  the  mountains  tremble  with  the  swelling  thereof. 
There  is  a  river,  the  streams  whereof  make  glad  the  city 

of  God,  ., 

The  holy  place  of  the  tabernacles  of  the  Most  High. 
God  is  in  the  midst  of  her;  she  shall  not  be  moved: 
God  will  help  her,  and  that  right  early. 
The  nations  raged,  the  kingdoms  were  moved: 
He  uttered  his  voice,  the  earth  melted. 
Jehovah  of  hosts  is  with  us; 
The  God  of  J^cob  is  our  refuge.    .    .    . 
Be  still,  and  know  that  I  am  God: 
I  will  be  exalted  among  the  nations,  I  will  be  exalted  in 

the  earth. 

f  — Psalm  46:  1-7,  10. 

Ill 


[IX-2]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Probably  the  primary  experience  of  anybody  with  the 
thought  of  God  is  of  courage.  The  word  itself  is  worth 
observing.  Courage  comes  into  the  English  language  by  way 
of  the  French  courage  from  the  Latin  cor,  and  of  course 
means  that  one  has  heart.  Loss  of  courage  means  that  one's 
heart  has  failed  before  some  strain  or  hard  experience. 
The  first  appeal  of  religion  is  to  the  heart.  It  does  not  draw 
its  assurance  from  what  goes  on  around  one.  Jesus  said 
that  the  peace  he  gave  is  not  given  as  the  world  gives  it 
(John  14:27),  for  he  wanted  to  make  our  hearts  untroubled, 
while  the  world  would  like  to  make  our  surroundings  undis- 
turbed. The  great  service  that  religion  can  render  us  is  to 
make  us  sure  even  when  chaos  reigns  in  our  surroundings. 
Many  things  can  happen,  this  psalm  says,  hut  the  failure  of 
God  cannot  happen.  And  the  psalm  does  not  suggest  that 
we  need  to  look  for  this  evidence  merely  in  some  personal 
experience ;  we  can  have  it  regarding  the  social  group  and 
the  social  movements  with  which  our  lives  are  wrapped  up. 
That  is  not  always  best  learned  in  the  strenuous  mood.  It  is 
worth  while  to  relax  sometimes,  as  the  phrase  "be  still" 
actually  means.  In  that  quieter  mood  we  get  our  reassur- 
ance of  the  power  of  God  and  the  religious  life. 


Ninth  Week,  Second  Day 

What  is  the  cause  of  personal  atheism  as  you  know  men 
who  profess  it?  Sometimes,  doubtless,  it  is  intellectual.  Is 
it  not  sometimes  purely  moral?  Have  you  not  seen  young 
fellows  give  up  their  idea  of  God,  nominally  because  of  some 
intellectual  difficulty,  but  actually  because  of  the  letting  down 
of  their  personal  standards  ?► 


The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God. 
They  are  corrupt,  they  have  done  abominable  works; 
There  is  none  that  doeth  good. 
Jehovah  looked  dov/n  from  heaven  upon  the  children  of 

men, 
To  see  if  there  were  any  that  did  understand. 
That  did  seek  after  God. 

They  are  all  gone  aside;  they  are  together  become  filthy; 
There  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  one. 

112 


^         GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-3] 

Have  all  the  workers  of  iniquity  no  knov^ledge, 

Who  eat  up  my  people  as  they  eat  bread, 

And  call  not  upon  Jehovah? 

There  were  they  in  great  fear; 

For  God  is  in  the  generation  of  the  righteous. 

— Psalm   14:  1-5. 

Whether  this  psalm  means  that  the  fool  who  declares  there 
is  no  God  does  so  because  he  is  corrupt  and  does  abominable 
works,  or  that  he  becomes  corrupt  because  he  has  let  the 
thought  of  God  get  away  from  him  does  not"  matter.  The 
two  things  might  go  together.  There  is  something  to  be  said 
for  the  police  power  of  religion  for  the  average  man.  The 
idea  of  God  has  a  clear  moral  force.  A  serious,  thorough- 
going wish  to  know  God  prevents  certain  other  wanderings 
of  spirit  which  are  ruinous.  Did  you  ever  find  yourself  going 
wrong  at  any  point  without  having  to  change  your  idea  of 
God  or  to  abandon  it  before  you  could  have  peace? 

Religion  would  \^ave,  on  these  terms,  large  social  force. 
The  psalm  goes  on  to  suggest  that  the  moral  breakdown 
which  comes  with  denial  of  God  works  out  into  social  wrongs. 
Exploiting  other  people  will  always  be  easier  if  we  forget 
that  we  and  they  are  children  of  one  Father.  Is  Bernard 
Shaw  right  in  saying :  "If  you  let  a  child  starve,  you  are 
letting  God  starve?"  Certainly,  injustice  cannot  go  unpun- 
ished in  a  social  order  in  which  God  is  remembered.  How 
is  your  own  idea  of  God  affecting  your  social  life? 

Ninth  Week,  Third  Day 

Arise,  O  Jehovah;  O  God,  lift  up  thy  hand: 

Forget  not  the  poor. 

Wherefore  doth  the  wicked  contemn  God, 

And  say  in  his  heart,  Thou  wilt  not  require  it? 

Thou  hast  seen  it;  for  thou  beholdest  mischief  and  spite, 

to  requite  it  with  thy  hand: 
The  helpless  committeth  himself  unto  thee; 
Thou  hast  been  the  helper  of  the  fatherless.    .     .     . 
Jehovah,  thou  hast  heard  the  desire  of  the  meek: 
Thou  wilt  prepare  their  heart,  thou  wilt  cause  thine  ear 

to  hear; 
To  judge  the  fatherless  and  the  oppressed, 
That  man  who  is  of  the  earth  may  be  terrible  no  more. 

— Psalm  10:  12-14,  i7»  18. 

113 


[IX-4]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

If  this  kind  of  saying  is  valid,  then  social  wrongs  are  irre- 
ligious, whoever  commits  them,  and  in  an  order  where  God 
has  the  final  word  they  are  doomed  and  people  who  continue 
them  are  doomed  also.  That  has  been  true  since  the  begin- 
ning, but  it  has  sometimes  been  obscured  by  the  accent  on 
personal  relations  with  God.  We  have  forgotten  that  other 
men  are  so  truly  our  brothers  that  offense  against  them  is 
offense  against  a  family  order  of  which  the  Head  of  the 
family  must  take  notice.  The  reason  we  are  concerned  with 
social  wrongs,  oppression  of  the  poor,  unfair  distribution 
of  the  profits  of  toil,  burdening  of  the  helpless,  is  that  all 
these  things  are  at  root  irreligious.  Lord  Morley  said  that 
"morality  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things,  it  is  the  nature  of 
things."  That  is  even  more  profoundly  true  of  right  reli- 
gion. What  it  calls  for  is  not  something  arbitrary,  set  up 
by  a  body  of  religious  people,  but  obedience  to  the  nature 
of  human  society,  conceived  as  the  family  of  God.  That  is 
what  it  means  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  to  hinge  our  being  for- 
given by  God  on  our  own  forgiveness  of  other  people.  We 
are  all  bound  in  one  bundle  of  life — God,  our  fellows  and 
ourselves.  He  is  noticing  our  social  relations.  Think  over 
the  parable  of  Jesus  (Matt.  18:21-35)  about  the  two  debtors, 
one  of  whom  owed  his  master  a  vast  debt  which  was  gra- 
ciously forgiven,  but  who  would  not  forgive  a  fellow  servant 
a  small  debt  owed  to  himself.  Relation  to  God,  which  is  reli- 
gion, has  no  meaning  unless  it  affects  relation  to  our  fellow- 
men. 

Ninth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

Lord,  thou  hast  been  our  dwelling-place 

In  all  generations. 

Before  the  mountains  were  brought  forth, 

Or  ever  thou  hadst  formed  the  earth  and  the  world, 

Even  from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  thou  art  God.    .    .    . 

Let  thy  work  appear  unto  thy  servants. 

And  thy  glory  upon  their  children. 

And  let  the  favor  of  the  Lord  our  God  be  upon  us; 

And  establish  thou  the  work  of  our  hands  upon  us; 

Yea,  the  work  of  our  hands  establish  thou  it. 

— Psalm  90: 1,  2,  16,  17. 

Here  is  a  word  for  those  of  us  who  are  honestly  trying  to 
get  things  done  in  the  social  order.     We  know  that  the  best 

114 


GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-5I 

things  we  undertake  cannot  be  finished  in  our  own  genera- 
tion without  a  speeding  up  of  movements  which  is  not  com- 
mon. We  are  compelled  at  our  best  to  take  account  of  the 
sweep  of  the  generations.  Somehow  we  are  fitting  into  a 
movement  greater  than  any  single  generation.  When  they 
asked  Abraham  Lincoln  if  he  felt  sure  God  was  on  his  side^ 
he  answered  that  he  was  more  concerned  to  be  sure  he  was 
on  God's  side.  We  have  made  a  great  step  when  we  have 
become  sure  that  God  has  a  side  of  things  in  this  world,  and 
that  the  good  causes  are  at  home  in  him. 

What  we  do  in  the  social  order  gets  its  permanence  from 
the  fact  that  God  is  in  the  work.  It  is  this  that  makes  it 
possible  to  endure  the  deep  sorrow  of  seeing  some  of  our 
best  efforts  come  to  nothing.  A  social  worker  in  New  York 
said  a  while  ago  that  he  had  ceased  to  mourn  over  the  fail- 
ure of  his  enterprises,  because  he  had  found  that  the  ones 
that  failed  were  really  in  the  way  of  better  ones  that  could 
not  be  seen  until  these  were  out  of  the  way.  At  the  end 
of  the  great  resurrection  chapter  (I  Cor.  15:58)  in  which 
Paul  has  argued  for  a  present,  living  Christ  and  not  merely 
an  historical  Christ,  he  swings  the  whole  argument  back  of 
an  appeal  for  vigorous  service  in  the  work  of  the  Lord, 
"forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  your  labor  is  not  in  vain  in 
the  Lord."  There  may  be  ways  in  which  work  seems  in. 
vain,  but  it  may  safely  be  trusted  to  God  to  be  established. 
Are  you  willing  to  do  your  full  part  today  in  confidence  that 
God  will  make  it  worth  while? 

Ninth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Most  of  us  have  a  period  in  life,  which  some  men  never 
outgrow,  when  we  are  afraid  of  the  idea  of  God  and  when 
we  wish  we  could  escape  the  demands  of  religion.  That  is 
what  men  mean  when  they  say  that  they  had  so  much  religion 
when  they  were  children  that  they  have  no  taste  for  it  now. 
Religion  was  irksome  to  them  and  they  welcomed  the  chance 
to  get  away  from  it.  That  is  not  much  to  be  wondered  at, 
for  it  applies  to  many  other  things.  There  are  plenty  of  men 
to  whom  school  is  so  irksome  that  they  want  to  escape  it 
as  soon  as  they  can.  Others  feel  the  same  way  about  home 
or  work.  All  these  things  are  merely  grim  necessities  to 
them,  to  be  abandoned  as  soon  as  possible.    Here,  instead,  is 

115 


[IX-6]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

the  true  idea  of  religion  both  in  personal  and  social  life.     It 
is  a  joyous  thing. 

Oh  come,  let  us  sing  unto  Jehpvah; 

Let  us  make  a  joyful  noise  to  the  rock  of  our  salvation. 

Let  us  come  before  his  presence  with  thanksgiving; 

Let  us  make  a  joyful  noise  unto  him  with  psalms. 

For  Jehovah  is  a  great  God, 

And  a  great  King  above  all  gods. 

In  his  hand  are  the  deep  places  of  the  earth; 

The  heights  of  the  mountains  are  his  also. 

The  sea  is  his,  and  he  made  it; 

And  his  hands  formed  the  dry  land. 

Oh  come,  let  us  worship  and  bow_jdown; 

Let  us  kneel  before  Jehovah  our  Maker: 

For  he  is   our   God, 

And  we  are  the  people  of  his  pasture,  and  the  sheep  of 

his  hand. 
To-day,  oh  that  ye  would  hear  his  voice! 

— Psalm  95:  1-7. 

There  is  no  better  news  possible  than  that  there  is  a  God 
like  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  that 
he  reigns  over  the  earth.  As  this  psalm  suggests,  it  makes 
nature  look  different  to  feel  that  it  is  made  by  God  and  kept 
by  him;  it  changes  the  meaning  of  history  to  know  that  he 
has  a  plan  working  through  it;  it  transforms  personal  life  to 
realize  that  he  cares  how  life  is  lived  and  what  comes  of  it. 
How  do  you  feel  about  religion  and  its  demands  yourself? 
Have  you  come  to  the  point  of  chafing  under  its  negations? 
Is  it  chiefly  a  restriction  or  has  it  come  to  be  an  inspiration? 
Are  you  tamely  or  deeply  glad  to  be  a  religious  believer? 

Ninth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

O  give  thanks  unto  Jehovah;  for  he  is  good; 
For  his  lovingkindness  endureth  for  ever. 
Let  the  redeemed  of  Jehovah  say  so,  ^ 

Whom  he  hath  re4eemed  from  the  hand  of  the  adversary, 
And  gathered  out  of  the  lands, 
From  the  east  and  from  the  west, 
Erom  the  north  and  from  the  south. 
They  wandered  in  the  wilderness  in  a  desert  way; 
They  found  no  city  of  habitation, 

116 


GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-7] 

Hungry  and  thirsty, 

Their  soul  fainted  in  them. 

Then  they  cried  unto  Jehovah  in  their  trouble, 

And  he  delivered  them  out  of  their  distresses, 

He  led  them  also  by  a  straight  v/ay, 

That  they  might  go  to  a  city  of  habitation. 

— Psalm  107: 1-7. 


The  best  argument  for  religion  is  its  history.  It  has  stood 
by  men  in  strain  and  made  them  able  to  endure.  It  has  made 
them  face  hunger  and  thirst  without  crying  to  anybody  but 
God.  It  has  not  left  them  weaklings  and  incapables.  That 
needs  to  be  remembered  when  charges  are  made  of  the  evil 
done  in  the  name  of  religion.  There  are  plenty  of  such 
things.  Religion  has  always  been  a  convenient  cloak  for  evil. 
That  proves  nothing.  The  fact  that  cheap  plaster  walls  fall 
down,  though  they  are  stained  to  look  like  marble,  is  really 
no  argument  against  marble.  The  Scripture  is  a  good  book 
even  though  "old  odd  ends"  can  be  stolen  out  of  it  to  clothe 
the  wicked  villainy  of  Gloster,  as  Shakespeare  makes  him 
say  he  has  done  in  Richard  III  (1:3).  Whatever  men  have 
said  about  it,  the  religion  that  is  true  to  God  as  Christ  taught 
him  does  not  provoke  to  violence  and  malice.  It  sustains  us 
in  the  strain  of  living  as  it  has  sustained  men  in  the  past. 
It  does  not  keep  men  from  strain  nor  from  hunger  or  thirst. 
These  things  come  in  as  part  of  the  day's  work.  Distresses 
and  wandering  are  not  evidences  of  desertion  by  God.  He 
has  not  forsaken  the  social  group  when  it  finds  its  relation 
to  the  whole  order  difficult.  But  he  does  still  make  such 
faithfulness  worth  while  by  making  men  feel  an  inner  satis- 
faction even  in  the  midst  of  their  needs.  There  is  too  much 
history  for  that  to  let  it  be  doubtful. 


Ninth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

Jehovah  reigneth;  let  the  earth  rejoice; 

Let  the  multitude  of  isles  be  glad. 

Clouds   and   darkness   are   round  about  him: 

Righteousness    and    justice    are    the    foundation    of    his 

throne.     .     .     . 
Jehovah  reigneth;  let  the  peoples  tremble: 
He  sitteth  above  the  cherubim;  let  the  earth  be  moved. 

117 


[IX-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Jehovah  is  great  in  Zion; 

And  he  is  high  above  all  the  peoples. 

Let  them   praise   thy  great  and  terrible   name: 

^°ly  i^  ^^-  -Psalm  97: 1,  2;  99: 1-3. 

This  reading  contains  the  famous  quotation  of  James  A. 
Garfield  when  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  was  announced. 
He  was  in  New* York  and  addressed  a  mass  meeting  in 
Wall  Street,  deeply  stirred  by  the  news.  At  the  opening 
of  his  address  he  said  :  "Clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about 
Him ;  God  reigns  and  the  government  at  Washington  still 
lives !"  The  case  for  God  in  history  is  not  yet  closed,  and 
there  are  more  chapters  to  be  written,  but  the  evidence  is 
already  enough  to  make  us  sure  of  his  presence  and  power. 
All  movements  for  righteousness  and  justice  are  part  of  the 
unveiling  of  his  throne,  for  they  are  its  foundation.  When 
we  are  troubled  by  the  slow  movement  of  such  forces,  we 
need  to  remember  that  growth  of  moral  character  and  habit 
is  involved  in  them.  Would  it  be  better  to  have  a  mechanic- 
ally just  world,  in  which  social  relations  were  determined 
without  the  will  of  the  people  who  make  up  the  social  order? 
Is  it  not  better  for  us  to  have  to  find  out  the  demands  of 
righteousness  and  justice  than  to  have  them  made  so  clear 
to  us  that  there  are  no  clouds  or  darkness?  Is  Goethe  right 
in  saying  in  the  prologue  to  Faust,  "Man  still  must  err  while 
he  doth  strive"?  Think  out  the  value  in  your  own  case  of 
the  moral  venture  of  life.  Sometimes  we  wish  that  questions 
of  duty  or  of  human  relationship  could  be  answered  so 
plainly  that  we  would  have  no  doubts  about  them  and  could 
always  know  just  what  we  ought  to  do.  Would  that  really 
be  best  for  us?  Little  children  must  have  conduct  deter- 
mined for  them  in  that  way;  what  would  be  the  effect  on 
them  if  it  were  so  determined  all  through  life?  God  does 
rule,  whether  we  rejoice  or  tremble  over  the  fact.  Is  it  not 
well  for  us  that  sometimes  his  way  is  surrounded  with  clouds 
and  darkness? 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

The  Hebrews  were  not  incHned  to  speculation.  No  such 
philosophy  as  that  of  the  Greeks  nor  even  the  coarser  phi- 
losophy of  the  Romans  appears  in  the  Old  Testament.     But 

118 


GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-c] 

no  people  were  more  assured  about  some  great  unseen  real- 
ities than  were  they.  God  is  one  of  those  facts  in  all  their 
literature.  As  Professor  McFadyen  says  ("Messages  of  the 
Psalmists,"  p.  5):  "The  refuge  of  these  men  was  in  God; 
and  more  persistently  than  any  other  book  in  the  Bible  does 
the  Psalms  bring  home  to  us  the  overwhelming  sense  of  the 
reality  and  personality  of  God."  Saying  that  there  is  no 
God  was  simply  to  set  one's  self  down  as  a  fool  \(i4:i; 
53:1) — not  always  in  our  bad,  vicious  sense  of  the  word,  but 
as  a  witless,  thoughtless,  unpenetrating  man.  Ernest  Poole 
in  "The  Harbor"  makes  one  of  his  characters  tell  of  his 
college  days  that  when  the  president  was  asked  if  they  had 
any  free-thinkers  there,  he  replied,  "No,  we  have  not  yet 
advanced  that  far.  For  it  takes  half  as  much  thinking  to  be 
a  free-thinker  as  to  be  a  believer  in  God !"  Walter  Scott 
wrote  in  1825 :  "There  afe  few,  I  trust,  who  disbelieve  the 
existence  of  God ;  nay,  I  doubt  if  at  all  times  and  in  all 
moods  any  single  individual  ever  adopted  that  hideous 
creed."  And  Churton  Collins  speaks  of  Shakespeare's  "sense 
of  the  utter  contemptibleness  and  unintelligibleness  of  man 
and  life  without  reference  to  the  divine." 

Denial  of  God  was  explained  for  the  psalmists  by  the  bad 
character  of  the  men  who  made  it.  They  were  corrupt 
(14:2,  3),  they  did  foolishly — of  course  they  did,  the  writer 
thought ;  for  they  had  lost  their  moral  balance  when  they 
lost  their  God,  so  fully  did  the  idea  of  God  enter  into 
daily  living.  Some  of  our  friends  are  insisting  that  morality 
and  religion  have  no  necessary  connection.  "If  there  be  no 
God  in  the  heavens,  conscience  is  still  in  tue  earth."  Duty, 
ethical  culture,  and  many  virtues  are  still  possible.  But  we 
have  not  yet  found  a  way  to  make  them  effective  in  daily 
life  in  the  long  run  of  things  without  finding  a  higher  sanc- 
tion than  human  opinion.  The  logic  of  the  case,  apart  from 
God,  is  still  with  the  man  who  says  :  "You  think  your  way, 
and  I  think  my  way;  why  should  you  call  me  wrong?" 

This  relation  to  God  was  much  thought  of  in  social  terms. 
It  was  personal,  of  course,  but  even  then  it  involved  one's 
being  helped  in  social  distresses  (3:1;  57 :  4)  and  it  demanded 
one's  service  of  others  (51:12,  13;  23:22,  30,  31).  Glance 
through  the  119th  psalm  and  see  how  strongly  personal  it  is 
and  yet  how  constantly  the  social  relations  are  emphasized. 
The  writer  knows  he  holds  relation  to  God  and  his  laws  first 

119 


[IX-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

of  all,  but  he  sees  also  how  much  those  laws  require  of  him 
and  how  much  they  reward  him  in  the  social  group  and  the 
social  order  of  which  he  is  part.  So  these  writers  are  ready 
to  draw  universal  principles  from  their  personal  experience. 
It  is  not  just  themselves  who  can  find  help  in  God,  but 
''Jehovah  upholdeth  all  that  fall"  (145:14),  and  blesses  all 
those  that  take  refuge  in  Him  (2:12).  God's  relation  to 
humanity  is  open  to  all  who  will  claim  it,  and  therein  lies  a 
tremendous   social  leverage. 

We  all  tend  to  become  like  our  real  idea  of  God.  Idols 
have  this  curse  on  'them,  that  those  who  make  them  tend  to 
become  like  them  (135:18).  If  it  is  true  that  we  tend  to 
make  a  God  in  our  image,  as  some  of  the  books  say,  it  is 
more  markedly  true  that  the  God  we  have  tends  to  make  us 
over  into  his  own  image.  That  is  the  great  fact  underlying 
the  assurance  that  the  consummation  of  the  Christian  life 
is  coming  into  likeness  to  Christ  (I  John  3:2).  So  long  as 
this  is  possible,  religion  cannot  be  a  matter  of  social  indiffer- 
ence. It  must  make  a  difference  what  kind  of  men  go  to  make 
up  the  social  order.  It  must  make  even  more  difference  what 
kind  of  principles  of  life  they  adopt  and  what  laws  they 
have  in  their  social  relationships.  But  all  these  are  part  of 
the  concern  of  religion. 


I.  Religion  in  the  social  order  is  often  a  disturbing  power. 
Under  some  conditions  the  thought  of  a  reigning  God  will 
make  men  tremble  (99:1).  If  a  .man  wants  to  go  wrong 
and  at  the  same  time  wants  to  be  at  peace,  he  must  get  rid 
of  his  idea  of  God.  Otherwise  it-  will  haunt  him.  There  is 
nowhere  he  can  go  and  be  rid  of  it  (139:7).  Nevinson  tells 
of  finding  an  excitable  Frenchman  at  an  African  port  who 
professed  himself  delighted  with  the  place  because  there 
were  no  ten  commandments  and  no  God  there.  That  left 
him  free  to  do  as  he  pleased  when  he  did  not  please  nobly. 
In  a  stirring  account  of  the  way  of  an  evil  man  in  the  loth 
psalm  it  is  said  that  he  can  keep  on  as  he  does  because  "all 
his  thoughts  are,  The/e  is  no  God."  Otherwise,  he  could 
not  do  it.  One  of  our  American  statesmen  said,  "As  I  think 
of  slavery,  I  tremble  for  my  nation  when  I  remember  that 
God  is  just."    But  how  would  he  feel  if  he  thought  that  God 

120 


GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-c] 

is  not  just?  God's  justice  is  exactly  the  ground  of  hope 
for  the  correction  of  social  wrongs.  They  cannot  be  per- 
manent in  an  order  where  God  has  the  final  word. 

Men  who  believe  in  God  ought  not  to  wonder  at  social 
disturbances.  Some  religions  may  stupefy  men  and  call  them 
to  accept  present  evils  in  hope  of  future  rewards.  There 
have  even  been  times  when  the  Christian  faith  has  been  mis- 
understood in  that  way.  Indeed,  the  great  practical  problem 
in  the  social  field  is  to  know  how  to  use  religion  to  make  a 
condition  endurable  without  cutting  the  nerve  of  the  effort  to 
correct  the  condition  itself.  It  is  the  manifest  purpose  of 
religion  to  make  us  brave  to  bear  whatever  we  must  bear 
that  comes  to  us  in  the  order  of  our  living  (23:4).  Equally 
it  must  be  the  purpose  of  religion  to  make  us  unwilling  to 
rest  in  evil  conditions,  but  to  strain  every  nerve  to  undo  the 
evil  to  which  we  have  to  submit  (118:  11-13).  "A  be-content- 
with-your-lot  religion  and  a  beyond-the-stars  heaven  can  no 
longer  be  used  as  a  soothing-syrup  to  silence  the  cries  of 
the  oppressed,"  Dr.  Vedder  says  with  a  familiar  exaggera- 
tion. How  to  obey  the  mandates  of  lawful  authority  and 
yet  to  be  strong  to  overthrow  that  authority  because  it  is 
not  right,  however  lawful,  is  the  great  political  problem. 
How  to  use  our  faith  to  make  us  brave  in  bearing  social 
injustice  and  brave  also  to  challenge  that  injustice  is  out* 
social  problem.  But  we  can  never  hold  a  faith  like  ours, 
which  lays  its  chief  stress  on  character,  and  whose  God  is 
first  of  all  holy  (111:9)  without  being  disturbed  in  the 
presence  of  social  evils.  We  will  have  to  be  blind  to  them 
or  dull  to  our  faith  to  get  along  happily  in  their  presence. 
We  may  not  care  to  use  the  imprecatory  psalms  and  call  on 
God  for  the  kind  of  vengeance  they  suggest,  but  we  w"ill  not 
suppose  that  the  wrongs  with  which  they  deal  can  go  on 
without  moral  ruin. 

Religion  in  the  social  order  is  intended  to  be  a  rectifying 
pozver.  The  inequalities  of  social  conditions  have  always 
troubled  thoughtful  men,  A  deeply  religious  man  cannot  dis- 
regard them,  and  he  is  sure  God  does  not  disregard  them,  but 
is  heeding  them  and  will  act  with  reference  to  them.  If 
necessary,  He  will  humble  himself  to  see  the  things  of  earth 

121 


[IX-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

(113:6)  and  will  care  for  the  poor  and  needy  (113:7,  8; 
107:41).  If  wicked  men  think  they  can  oppress  with 
impunity,  that  only  shows  how  foolish  men  can  be.  The 
37th  and  73rd  psalms  are  devoted  to  the  correction  of  any 
spirit  that  would  misread  the  story  of  the  supposed  pros- 
perity of  evil  in  God's  world.  It  is  mushroom  prosperity. 
We  would  have  it  corrected  on  the  instant,  but  that  cannot 
be  the  way  of  a  world  in  which  moral  character  is  to  be 
developed.  Only,  we  are  never  to  have  the  notion  that  im- 
morality can  go  on  uncorrected.  The  7th  and  loth  psalms 
are  based  on  some  experience  of  the  smash  that  has  come 
to  men  who  seemed  too  secure  to  be  disturbed.  They  carry 
the  same  lesson  as  Browning's  "Instans  Tyrannus,"  a  short 
poem  in  which  he  has  told  the  scheming  of  an  importunate 
tyrant  to  destroy  a  man  who  was  not  to  his  mind.  The  man 
himself  was  too  insignificant  to  deserve  such  animosity,  but 
the  whim  of  the  tyrant  made  him  greater  than  he  was.  He 
was  friendless,  without  place  or  position.  At  last  the  tyrant 
ran  fires  around  him,  laid  mines  under  him  and  sent  out  his 
thunders  over  him,  looking  on  "to  enjoy  the  event." 

"When  sudden    .     .     .    how  think  ye,  the  end? 
Did  I   say  'without  friend'? 
Say  rather,  from  marge  to  blue  marge 
The  whole  sky  grew  his  targe  ; 

With  the  sun's  self  for  visible  boss, 
While  an  Arm  ran  across 

Which  the  earth  heaved  beneath  like  a  breast 
Where  the  wretch  was  safe  prest ! 
Do  you  see?     Just  my  vengeance  complete, 
The  man  sprang  to  his  feet, 

Stood  erect,  caught  at  God's  skirts,  and  prayed ! 
— So,  /  was  afraid !" 

Is  not  that  only  a  comment  on  Psalm  14 :  5,  "There  were  they 
in  great  fear;  for  God  Is  in  the  generation  of  the  righteous"? 
The  favor  claimed  from  God  in  the  psalms  is  not  arbitrary 
and  on  grounds  of  favoritism,  but  on  the  ground  of  right- 
eousness. When  men  are  condemned  they  are  bad  men,  not 
personal  enemies.  They  have  oppressed  the  poor,  they  have 
ground  down  the  distressed,  they  have  robbed  widows  and 
orphans,  they  have  sneered  at  the  efforts  of  men  to  regain 
their  feet  after  a  fall,  they  have  ridiculed  religion  and  men 

122 


GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-c] 

who  have  tried  to  be  true  to  it,  they  have  returned  evil  for 
good.  In  a  word  they  are  social  offenders,  and  it  does  not 
occur  to  these  writers  that  God  can  disregard  that.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  men  approved  are  not  favorites  of  fortune, 
but  men  who  have  tried  to  be  true  to  God  and  man.  In  a 
word,  they  are  social  servants,  and  it  does  not  occur  to  these 
writers  that  God  can  be  indifferent  to  them  and  their  fortunes. 
If  religion  is  not  to  rectif}^  such  evils,  if  God  is  not  to  be 
supposed  to  care  about  them,  then  we  will  have  to  have  a 
different  idea  of  religion  from  that  of  the  psalmists.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  the  lovingkindness  of  God  is  the  peril 
of  evil  doers  and  the  hope  of  the  righteous  (52). 


Ill 

Religion  in  the  social  order  is  intended  to  be  a  reassuring 
power.  It  is  God  who  makes  effort  worth  while.  Unless  he 
builds  the  house,  they  labor  in  vain  that  build  it,  and  unless 
he  keeps  the  city,  the  watchman  wakes  in  vain  (127:1). 
Admiral  "Jack"  Philip  was  not  only  a  participant  in  our  civil 
war  and  more  prominently  in  the  Spanish-American  war  in 
command  of  the  Texas,  but  he  was  a  sincere  Christian.  His 
Bible  showed  dates  of  his  reading  the  entire  Bible  through 
twelve  times  and  the  New  Testament  thirty-four  times.  In 
his  working  copy  of  the  Bible  were  these  words  written : 
"Send  me  anywhere — only  go  with  me.  Put  any  burden  on 
me — only  sustain  me.  Sever  any  tie,  except  that  which  binds 
me  to  Thy  heart  and  service." 

One  Sunday  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  had  an  experience 
which  she  records  in  her  diary:  "As  we  drove  into  town 
(to  church)  I  had  one  of  those  momentary  glimpses  which 
in  things  spiritual  are  so  precious.  The  idea  became  clear 
and  present  to  my  mind  that  God,  an  actual  presence,  takes 
note  of  our  actions  and  intentions.  I  thought  how  helpful  it 
would  be  to  pass  our  lives  in  a  sense  of  this  divine  super- 
vision. The  thought  is  one  to  which  I  have  need  to  cling. 
\  have  at  this  moment  mental  troubles,  obsessions  of  imagi- 
nation, from  which  I  pray  to  be  dehvered.  While  this  idea 
of  the  divine  presence  was  clear  to  me,  I  felt  myself  lifted 
above  these  things.  May  this  lifting  continue!"  Tenny- 
son's son  tells  that  a  week  before  the  poet's  death  he  "was 

123 


[IX-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

sitting  with  him  and  he  talked  long  of  the  personality  and 
the  love  of  God — 'that  God  whose  eye  considers  the  poor, 
who  catereth  even  to  the  sparrow.'  He  said,  'I  should  infi- 
nitely rather  feel  myself  the  most  miserable  wretch  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  with  a  God  above,  than  the  highest  type 
of  man  standing  alone.' " 

There  is  no  calculating  the  value  in  social  movements 
of  a  sense  of  divine  interest  in  the  movement  itself.  Paul 
was  ready  for  the  hardest  field,  because  after  all  it  was 
neither  his  planting  nor  Apollos'  watering,  but  God  ■  who 
gave  the  increase  (i  Cor.  Z'-^,  7)-  When  a  scofifer  asked 
Morrison  if  he  thought  he  could  make  any  impression  on 
China,  he  replied,  "No,  but  I  think  God  can."  Schemes  have 
their  value,  but  power  belongs  to  God  (62:11).  He  is  the 
dwelling  place  of  men  who  are  trying  to  serve  him  (90:  i)  ; 
a  refuge  and  strength  for  them  (46:1),  even  though  the 
last  earthly  friend  should  forsake  them  (27 :  10)  ;  not  merely 
a  place  where  they  may  feel  safe,  but  a  source  whence  they 
may  feel  strong.  No  man  needs  strength  to  keep  him  out  of 
the  fight,  seeking  refuge  for  himself.  If  there  is  any  promise 
of  strength  it  must  be  because  men  are  to  get  into  the  thick 
of  things ;  only,  in  the  thick  of  things  they  are  to  be  wholly 
unafraid  {3:6',  56:3,  11;  112:7).  Such  a  state  will  be 
brought  about  by  keeping  clear  our  sense  of  God  as  over 
against  men.  One  of  the  writers  prays  that  nations  may 
know  themselves  to  be  but  men  (9 :  20)  and  another  calls  on 
God  to  act  so  that  "man  who  is  of  the  earth  may  be  terrible 
no  more"   (10:  18). 

Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  once  sent  a  nervous  New  York  business 
man  out  to  the  plains  just  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  to 
regain  his  perspective.  He  needed  to  get  his  horizon  pushed 
farther  back  where  it  belonged,  to  see  himself  as  no  bigger 
than  he  actually  was,  to  know  how  much  of  the  world  there 
is  outside  of  a  business  house.  After  six  months  there  he 
came  back  cured,  steadied  for  work  again.  Religion  is  meant 
to  do  that  kind  of  thing  for  us.  Apply  it  to  your  own  case. 
What  is  the  effect  of  your  own  religion  on  your  judgment 
of  events  and  characters  on  your  college  campus  or  in  your 
community  life?  Does  it  tend  to  make  you  ready  to  take 
part  in  movements  for  good  because  you  know  they  will  not 
fail?  Do  you  incline  to  magnify  small  things  beyond  their 
real  importance? 

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GOD  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [IX-c] 

IV 

Religion  in  the  social  order  is  intended  to  be  an  enlarging 
power.  That  is  the  meaning  of  that  strange  combination  of 
ideas  in  the  i8th  psalm :  "Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great" 
(v.  35).  Our  story  of  the  argument  between  the  wind  and 
the  sun  as  to  their  power  over  the  traveler  carries  the  same 
truth.  Juvenal  said  that  the  adage,  "Know  thyself,"  came 
down  from  heaven.  Coleridge  advises  us  rather  to  ignore 
ourselves  and  strive  to  know  our  God. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  call  ourselves  sisters  of  the  worm 
in  order  to  realize  that  it  is  more  important  for  us  to  know 
God  than  anything  else.  Dr.  Deems  used  to  put  the 
three  sa3''ings  together :  Know  thyself ;  The  proper  study 
of  mankind  is  man;  Acquaint  now  thyself  with  Him  and 
be  at  peace ;  and  to  say  that  each  of  them  has  its  Value  but 
that  they  rise  in  importance  in  this  order.  Jesus  said  it  in 
the  highest  hour  of  his  life  (John  17:3)  :  "and  this  is  life 
eternal,  that  they  may  know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and  him 
whom  thou  didst  send,  even  Jesus  Christ."  Dr.  Frank  W. 
Gunsaulus,  in  his  sermon  on  this  text,  compares  the  growth 
of  a  plant  and  its  reaching  up  toward  the  sun,  finding  its  life 
there,  with  the  growth  of  our  souls  as  they  reach  up  to  God. 
Christ  is  the  sun-ray  that  comes  down  to  the  soul,  bearing  the 
very  nature  of  God  and  making  him  knowable  to  finite  men. 
Certainly  no  religion  in  history  has  attempted  to  mean  so 
much  in  the  social  order  as  the  religion  of  Christ. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

In  your  observation  of  men  who  deny  the  existence  of  God 
or  who  count  the  matter  wholly  indifferent,  are  the  reasons 
intellectual  ones?  What  seems  to  you  the  probable  explana- 
tion for  such  a  position?  What  is  the  best  way  of  meeting 
men  of  the   sort? 

Consider  the  attitude  of  the  state  toward  religion.  Is  it 
well  to  consider  the  religious  affiliations  of  a  candidate  for 
political  office?  Are  laws  relating  to  religion  wise?  How 
far  ought  laws  regarding  the  Sabbath  to  go? 

Religion  being  necessary  for  the  social  order,  what  should 
be  the  attitude  of  city  or  community  settlements  toward  it? 
In  cases  where  settlement  leaders  think  religious  influences 
cannot  properly  be  used,  how  might  their  lack  be  made  good? 

125 


CHAPTER  X 

Sin  and  the  Social  Order 

DAILY   READINGS 

Tenth  Week,  First  Day 

There-  is  a  vigorous  sense  of  sin  revealed  in  the  psalms. 
Some  of  it  is,  of  course,  purely  personal.  The  man  cannot 
think  of  the  wrongs  of  other  people  when  his  own  seem  so 
dark.  But  most  of  the  sin  dealt  with  in  the  psalms  is  social. 
It  breaks  the  relations  among  men  and  damages  not  only 
the  man  who  commits  it,  but  other  people  who  are  caught  in 
his  group  or  even  the  whole  social  order.  This  section  for 
today  covers  a  wide  circle  of  thought  about  the  social  aspects 
of  sin. 

But  unto  the  wicked  God  saith, 

What  hast  thou  to  do  to  declare  my  statutes, 

And  that  thou  hast  taken  my  covenant  in  thy  mouth? 

Seeing  that  thou  hatest  instruction, 

And  castest  my  words  behind  thee. 

When  thou  sawest  a  thief,  thou  consentedst  with  him, 

And  hast  been  partaker  with  adulterers. 

Thou  givest  thy  mouth  to  evil, 

And  thy  tongue  frameth  deceit. 

Thou  sittest  and  speakest  against  thy  brother; 

Thou  slanderest  thine  own  mother's  son. 

These  things  hast  thou  done,  and  I  kept  silence; 

Thou  thoughtest  that  I  was  altogether  such  a  one  as  thy- 
self: 

But   I   will  reprove  thee,  and  set  them   in   order  before 
thine   eyes. 

— Psalm  50:  16-21. 

One  primary  sin  is  hypocrisy,  talking  in  the  terms  of  religion 
but  refusing  to  live  by  its  laws.    That  dulls  one's  keenness  of 

126 


SIN  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-2] 

understanding,  so  that  one  does  not  want  to  know  duty. 
There  is  no  sin  in  not  knowing  social  duty,  but  there  is  deep 
sin  in  refusing  to  try  to  find  it  out.  Suppose  we  say  we  do 
not  see  what  we  can  do  to  hinder  evils  in  the  social  order ; 
may  that  not  be  an  added  charge  against  us?  Ought  we  not 
to  see?  And  is  there  not  much  danger  that  we  will  take 
part  in  the  sins  of  other  people,  consenting  with  offenders, 
until  we  become  parties  to  the  offense  ourselves?  No  man 
can  be  negative  in  his  attitude  toward  sin  without  becoming 
positive  in  its  favor.  He  fights  it  or  favors  it.  Playing 
second  fiddle  to  other  men's  sin  is  one  road  to  committing 
sin  ourselves. 

Tenth  Week,  Second  Day 

So  they  did  eat,  and  were  well  filled; 

And  he  gave  them  their  own  desire. 

They  were  not  estranged  from  that  which  they  desired, 

Their  food  was  yet  in  their  mouths. 

When  the  anger  of  God  went  up  against  them. 

And  slew  of  the  fattest  of  them. 

And  smote  down  the  young  men  of  Israel. 

For  all  this  they  sinned  still, 

And  believed  not  in  his  wondrous  works. 

Therefore  their  days  did  he  consume  in  vanity. 

And  their  years  in  terror. 

When  he  slew  them,  then  they  inquired  after  him; 

And  they  returned  and  sought  God  earnestly. 

And  they  remembered  that  God  was  their  rock. 

And  the  Most  High  God  their  redeemer. 

— Psalm  78:29-35. 

Here  is  one  of  the  perennial  social  complications ;  the  rela- 
tion between  prosperity  and  evil.  Professor  Giddings'  say- 
ing is  familiar:  "Sin  is  misery;  misery  is  poverty;  the  anti- 
dote for  poverty  is  income."  Do  you  think  that  is  funda- 
mentally true?  Can  we  think  that  if  we  are  prospering,  if 
our  income  is  good,  we  have  avoided  sin?  Would  a  prosper- 
ous nation  be  a  sinless  one?  Would  it  even  be  a  happy  one 
on  that  account?  There  is  no  sin  in  prosperit5^  and  if  our 
income  is  good  we  may  well  be  glad  of  it.  But  we  must 
look  elsewhere  for  evidence  of  freedom  from  sin.  Moral 
and  temporal  conditions  do  not  always  run  parallel.  Nor 
does  severe  discipline  or  the  withdrawal  of  prosperity  neces- 

127 


[X-3]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL   LIFE 

sarily  turn  men  from  wrong-doing.  It  may  be  meant  for 
that,  and  the  first  question  a  thoughtful  man  must  ask  v/hen 
he  is  suffering  failure  is  whether  he  is  being  corrected  for 
the  way  he  has  been  living.  But  he  may  not  be.  The  thing 
we  have  to  face  is :  Can  our  souls  endure  prosperity  and 
keep  right  with  God?  And  next  after  that:  Can  we  learn 
the  lessons  of  adversity  if  it  comes  to  us?  But  while  we  are 
zealous  to  see  great  prosperity  come  to  the  social  group  which 
we  love,  the  college  or  the  community,  we  are  to  keep  it  fit 
for  prosperity  and  brave  enough  for  adversity. 

Tenth  Week,  Third  Day 

Biit  they  flattered  him  with  their  mouth, 
And  lied  unto  him  with  their  tong;ue. 
For  their  heart  was  not  right  with  him. 
Neither  were  they  faithful  in  his  covenant. 
But   he,    being    merciful,    forgave    their   iniquity,    and   de- 
stroyed them  not: 
Yea,  many  a  time  turned  he  his  anger  away,i 
And  did  not  stir  up  all  his  wrath. 
And  he  remembered  that  they  were  but  flesh, 
A  wind  that  passeth  away,  and  cometh  not  again. 
How  oft  did  they  rebel  against  him  in  the  wilderness. 
And  grieve  him  in  the  desert! 
And  they  turned  again  and  tempted  God, 
And  provoked  the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 

— Psalm  78:36-41. 

Here  again  is  the  hollow  note  in  religion  which  so  soon 
turns  to  a  positive  note  of  wrong.  Talking  favorably  about 
religion  and  God,  and  all  the  while  merely  flattering  God, 
lying  with  the  tongue  while  the  heart  is  not  right,  is  sure  to 
lead  to  unfaithfulness  in  duty.  God's  covenant  is  a  constant 
challenge  of  service,  but  it  appeals  to  hearts  and  not  chiefly 
to  tongues.  The  trouble  with  the  social  order  is  the  bad 
hearts  which  appear  so  commonly  in  it — our  own  bad  hearts, 
whether  they  are  born  in  us  (51  :  5)  or  not.  Imagine  that 
people  everywhere,  yourself  included,  were  thoroughly  sound 
in  heart ;  how  soon  could  the  social  problems  be  solved  and 
the  social  evils  righted?  Not  instantl5^  of  course;  but  would 
we  not  be  on  the  way  toward  the  solution  of  all  our  present 
problems  and  well  safeguarded  against  new  ones?  Yet  it 
would    be    foolish    to    despair    of    the    social    order    on    this 

128 


5"/A^  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-4] 

account.  God  does  not.  He  deals  with  us  for  what  we  are 
in  order  to  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be.  We  never  aggra- 
vate God  into  petulancy.  The  social  order  would  have  fallen 
to  pieces  many  times  if  there  had  not  been  so  many  correc- 
tive forces  at  work.  God's  mercy  appears  in  them.  We  are 
learning  to  think  of  human  frailty  more  gently,  somewhat  as 
God  does,  knowing  that  men  are  but  flesh  after  all.  But 
that  does  not  take  away  from  them  the  fact  of  evil  with  its 
spoiling  of  the  social  order. 

Tenth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

God's  law  is  human  duty  and  it  is  failure  In  duty  or  viola- 
tion of  that  law  that  makes  sin.  As  you  understand  sin, 
could  it  not  he  described  as  self-assertion  in  disregard  of 
Godf  It  is  acting  as  though  the  law  of  God  did  not  matter 
to  us.  Our  sight  of  the  will  of  God  really  measures  our 
sense  of  sin.  Paul  speaks  of  that  several  times  in  the  Romans 
(3:20;  4:  15;  7 '.7).  He  says  it  is  only  when  the  law  of  God 
comes  that  we  have  any  sense  of  sin.  If  we  take  light  views 
of  what  God  requires,  is  it  not  plain  that  we  change  our  idea 
of  human  conduct?  We  must  lower  our  ideal  or  raise  our 
conduct  to  have  peace  of  mind  when  they  differ.  But  we 
are  not  to  think  of  God's  law  as  a  limiting  fact.  It  is  the 
enlarging  fact  of  the  social  order.  God's  ambitions  for 
society  are  higher  than  our  own. 

The  law  of  Jehovah  is  perfect,  restoring  the  soul: 

The  testimony  of  Jehovah  is  sure,  making  v^^ise  the  simple. 

The  precepts  of  Jehovah  are  right,  rejoicing  the  heart: 

The  commandment  of  Jehovah  is  pure,  enlightening  the 
eyes. 

The  fear  of  Jehovah  is  clean,  enduring  for  ever: 

The  ordinances  of  Jehovah  are  true,  and  righteous  alto- 
gether. 

More  to  be  desired  are  they  than  gold,  yea,  than  much 
fine  gold; 

Sweeter  also  than  honey  and  the  droppings  of  the  honey- 
comb. 

Moreover  by  them  is  thy  servant  warned: 

In  keeping  them  there  is  great  reward. 

— Psalm  19:  7-1 1. 

This  tells  what  God's  will  would  accompHsh   for  us  if   we 

129 


[X-5]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

gave  it  a  chance.     Sin  is  refusing  to  give  it  its  chance  to  do 
what  he  wishes  to  do  for  us. 

V 

Tenth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  thee,  O  Jehovah. 

Lord,  hear  my  voice: 

Let  thine  ears  be  attentive 

To  the  voice  of  my  supplications. 

If  thou,  Jehovah,   shouldest  mark  iniquities, 

0  Lord,  who  could  stand? 

But  there  is  forgiveness  with  thee, 
That  thou  mayest  be  feared. 

1  wait  for  Jehovah,  my  soul  doth  wait, 
And  in  his  word  do  I  hope. 

My  soul  waiteth  for  the  Lord 

More  than  watchmen  wait  for  the  morning; 

Yea,  more  than  watchmen  for  the  morning. 

O  Israel,  hope  in  Jehovah; 

For  with  Jehovah  there  is  lovingkindness, 

And  with  him  is  plenteous  redemption. 

And  he  will  redeem  Israel 

From  all  his  iniquities.  — Psalm    130. 

The  arresting  thing  here  is  the  writer's  sense  of  the  prev- 
alence of  sin  all  about  him.  If  there  is  no  way  of  standing 
before  God  without  sin,  then  no  man  can  stand  there.  At 
some  point  we  are  all  self-assertive  in  disregard  of  God,  and 
that  makes  us  hurtful  to  the  social  order  for  which  his  will 
is  the  only  safe  law.  And  God's  way  of  forgiveness  is  not 
to  disregard  sin  and  not  to  make  us  think  lightly  of  it,  nor 
to  make  us  trifle  with  it.  There  is  forgiveness  with  him  that 
he  may  be — feared.  Sometimes  we  talk  about  forgiveness  in 
terms  that  make  us  disregard  God.  When  Heine  was  asked 
if  he  expected  God  to  forgive  him,  he  answered,  "Of  course; 
that  is  what  God  is  for !"  Is  that  the  attitude  toward  God 
that  understands  his  forgiveness?  If  our  being  forgiven 
does  not  rnake  us  feel  more  reverent  and  humble  before  God, 
then  it  may  be  wondered  whether  we  have  found  forgiveness. 
And  we  are  not  to  think  of  forgiveness  as  relieving  us  from 
the  penalties  of  wrong  doing.  God  redeems  from  iniquities, 
not  from  penalties.  Of  course  vv^hen  the  iniquity  itself  is 
gone,  the  penalties  go  with  it.  It  is  not  going  to  hell  that  is 
to  be   feared ;   it  is  belonging  there  because   we  have  bound 

130 


SIN  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-6] 

our  lives  to  the  moral  qualities  that  belong  there  that  is  to  be 
feared. 

Tenth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

Purify  me  with    hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean: 

Wash  me,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow. 

Make  me  to  hear  joy  and  gladness, 

That  the  bones  which  thou  hast  broken  may  rejoice. 

Hide  thy  face  from  my  sins, 

And  blot   out   all   mine   iniquities. 

Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God; 

And  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me. 

Cast  me  not  away  from  thy  presence; 

And  take  not  thy  holy  Spirit  from  me.  * 

Restore  unto  me  the  joy  of  thy  salvation; 

And  uphold  me  with  a  willing  spirit. 

Then  will  I  teach  transgressors  thy  ways; 

And  sinners  shall  be  converted  unto  thee. 

— Psalm  51:  7-13. 

The  correction  of  social  evil  begins  with  the  individual  life. 
A  cleansed  life  is  the  first  necessity.  Purify  me — wash  me — 
blot  out  mine  iniquities;  and  then  will  I  teach  transgressors 
Thy  way.  Jesus  said  the  same  thing  in  his  parable  about  the 
mote  in  the  eye  of  the  neighbor  and  the  beam  in  one's  own 
eye.  He  did  not  suggest  that  we  could  be  indifferent  to  either 
mote  or  beam,  or  that  we  might  decline  to  help  our  neigh- 
bor with  his  mote  because  we  have  a  beam  in  our  own  eye. 
He  tells  us  to  get  rid  of  our  own  trouble  and  then  we  can 
see  clearly  to  help  somebody  else.  That  is  the  weakness  of 
refusal  to  take  part  in  movements  for  the  correction  of  a 
wrong  condition  in  which  one  is  personally  involved.  A 
college  student  cannot  fairly  decline  to  stand  against  wrongs 
on  the  campus  because  his  own  life  has  not  been  right. 
It  is  his  business  to  make  his  life  right  in  order  that  he 
may  help  in  the  work  of  correction.  Dr.  Arnold  put  a 
younger  boy  under  the  care  of  Tom  Brown  and  that  made 
Tom  Brown  brace  up  his  own  life.  No  v/rongs  are  ever 
righted  until  somebody  cares  about  them.  There  are  no 
perfect  men  to  care.  It  must  be  men  who  know  their  own 
need  in  some  line  who  will  ever  get  wrongs  righted.  The 
root  evil  in  the  social  order  is  selfishness,  and  it  is  one  form 
of  selfishness  when  we  will  not  correct  our  own  lives  so  that 

131 


[X-7]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

we  may  be   effective   in   trying  to   correct   wider   wrongs   in 
the  social  order. 

Tenth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

Jehovah  is  merciful  and  gracious, 

Slow  to  anger,  and  abundant  in  lovingkindness. 

He  will  not  always  chide; 

Neither  will  he  keep  his  anger  for  ever. 

He  hath  not  dealt  with  us  after  our  sins, 

Nor  rewarded  us  after  our  iniquities. 

For  as  the  heavens  are  high  above  the  earth, 

So  great  is  his  lovingkindness  toward  them  that  fear  him. 

As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west. 

So  far  ha^h  he  removed  our  transgressions  from  us. 

Like  as   a  father  pitieth  his   children, 

So  Jehovah  pitieth  them  that  fear  him. 

For  he  knoweth  our  frame; 

He  remembereth  that  we  are  dust. 

— Psalm  103:8-14. 

Here  again  is  the  assurance  that  God  understands  our 
fight  as  well  as  our  failure.  People  around  us  have  clear 
eyes  for  the  times  we  fall  down,  but  they  cannot  know  very 
fully  the  times  we  stood  up  instead  of  falling.  They  have  a 
limit  to  what  they  will  put  up  with,  and  they  are  not  ready  to 
make  allowances.  Indeed,  we  ought  not  to  ask  allowances 
from  men  because  they  have  the  same  fight  we  have,  for 
aught  we  know.  We  must  not  do  any  baby-acting  when 
things  go  wrong  with  us.  If  we  have  any  pleading  to  do,  let 
it  be  done  where  it  is  asked,  that  is,  with  God.  But  in  our 
own  dealing  with  other  people,  offenders  in  the  social  order, 
we  have  to  learn  God's  attitude.  Severity  in  dealing  with 
evils  must  always  be  safeguarded  in  spirit.  Vengeance,  or 
trying  to  get  even  with  wrongdoers,  is  not  like  God.  A  judge, 
sentencing  a  seventeen-year-old  offender,  a  murderer  whose 
nonchalance  had  been  very  trying,  added  to  his  committal  to 
the  penitentiary  for  life  the  words,  "And  I  hope  you  will  rot 
there."  Meanwhile  the  boy  became  quite  a  hero  with  women 
who  sent  him  flowers  and  notes.  Plainly,  there  is  a  middle 
course  of  strength  and  gentleness  which  we  must  learn  to 
take.  God's  severity  is  for  saving.  Ours  must  be.  The  new 
science  of  penology  may  swing  too  far,  but  it  is  more  nearly 
Christian  than  much  of  the  old  system. 

132 


SIN  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-c] 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 
I 

Sin  is  an  act  of  the  human  will,  self-assertion  in  disregard 
of  God.  It  may  be  defiant,  committed  in  full  view  of  duty, 
or  merely  indifferent  to  any  will  of  God.  Most  sin  is  of  the 
latter  sort,  and  comes  out  of  an  inherent  self-regard  which 
has  value  when  it  is  rightly  directed.  Illustrate  it  with  what 
you  know  of  ambition,  which  is  one  form  of  self-regard : 
could  a  man  do  his  best  work  without  ambition ;  on  the  other 
hand,  is  there  anything  that  cripples  a  man's  power  to  help 
■  society  more  than  ambition  that  is  selfish?  It  is  when  the 
self  is  asserted  in  disregard  of  God  and  his  requirements  on 
self  that  sin  is  sure  to  appear.  And  as  the  self  is  set  in  the 
order  of  God  in  a  social  group  and  then  in  a  wider  social 
order,  it  follows  ^naturally  that  most  sin  is  social,  either  in 
its  provocation  or  in  its  .continuance  or  in  its  worst  results. 
The  writers  of  the  psalms  treat  it  so. 

The  best  writers  in  literature  treat  it  in  the  same  way. 
Compare  Tennyson's  use  of  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table 
with  Malory's  use  of  the  same  story.  In  both  cases,  the 
Round  Table  is  broken  up  by  sin,  the  sin  of  individuals  at 
first,  broadening  into  the  group.  Malory  makes  it  the  sin 
of  Arthur  himself,  and  the  breakup  of  the  order  an  act  of 
fair  reprisal  for  his  wrong.  Tennyson  makes  it  the  result 
of  the  sin  of  Guinevere  and  Lancelot  which  could  not  con- 
tinue theirs  alone,  but  in  the  nature  of  the  case  spread  to 
the  group.  In  either  case,  selfishness  is  the  root  form  of  the 
sin,  the  war  of  Sense  against  the  Soul,  as  Tennyson  calls 
it  in  the  closing  part  of  the  Idylls.  But  selfishness  is  never 
possible  Vv'ithout  damage  to  the  social  group,  fo^  in  its  very 
meaning  it  involves  that  group.  When  a  man  tells  a  lie  he 
not  only  becomes  a  liar,  but  he  vitiates  the  social  atmosphere 
in  which  he  has  to  live  and  makes  it  harder  for  himself  and 
for  others  to  be  true. 

There  is  obvious  danger  in  taking  all  responsibility  from 
the  individual  and  blaming  everything  on  society.  Society 
itself  is  made  up  of  individuals  and  if  the  individual  offender 
is  not  to  blame  for  his  part  in  the  wrong  he  has  done,  it 
seems  idle  to  blame  other  individuals  for  the  part  they  have 
had  in  the  same  wrong.  If  a  poor  man  cannot  help  stealing, 
then  how  can  a  rich  man  help  oppressing  him?    Are  not  both 

133 


[X-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

under  the  same  social  pressure?  The  plea  which  transfers 
the  load  of  blame  from  the  offender  to  the  social  order  proves 
too  much.  The  fact  is  that  both  the  individual  who  is 
"forced"  to  do  wrong  and  the  individuals  who  "force"  him 
to  do  it  can  keep  from  doing  the  wrong  thing,  while  each  is 
making  it  harder  for  the  other  to  do  the  right  thing.  The 
slums  do  not  explain  all  the  badness ;  it  takes  some  measure 
of  the  badness  to  explain  the  slums.  Poverty  makes  some 
men  shiftless  and  shiftlessness  makes  some  men  poor.  Need 
for  food  drives  some  men  to  dishonesty  and  dishonesty 
drives  some  men  to  hunger.  If  a  young  fellow  goes  wrong 
on  a  college  campus,  that  is  partly  because  there  are  wrong 
social  conditions  which  he  meets  there  and  partly  because  he 
gives  way  to  them  unnecessarily.  So  the  psalms  emphasize 
personal  responsibility  for  wrong,  and  yet  almost  without 
exception  use  the  plural  for  offenders.  We  sin  individually, 
but  we  live  in  droves  and  the  drove  helps  us  to  sin  and 
carries  the  large  result  of  the  sin.'  Read  here,  if  possible, 
Lowell's  "Parable"  in  which  he  tells  of  Christ's  coming  to 
earth  again  to  see  how  his  brethren  believed  in  him.  He 
found  churches  everywhere,  but  need  abounded  as  well. 

"Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 
A  low-browed,   stunted,  haggard  man, 
And    a    motherless    girl,    whose    fingers    thin 
Pushed    from   her    faintly    want    and    sin. 

"These  set  He  in  the  midst  of  them. 
And  as  they  drew  back  their  garments'  hem, 
For  fear  of  defilement,  'Lo,  here !'  said  He, 
'The  images  ye  have  made  of  me !' " 

How  far  was  it  fair  for  Lowell  to  place  the  blame  of  these 
"images"  on  the  whole  social  order  or  on  all  brethren  of 
Christ? 

We  noted  in  one  of  our  daily  studies  four  social  sins  which 
are  grouped  in  one  psalm  (50:16-21):  hypocrisy,  partner- 
ship with  evil,  sins  of  the  tongue,  and  contempt  for  God. 
Frequently  throughout  the  psalms  oppression  of  weaker 
people  is  dealt  with  (10:7-10;  55:9-11;  140:1-5).  Not  even 
the  minor  prophets  are  more  earnest  in  their  protest  against 
oppression  of  the  poor  than  these  psalmists.  The  condi- 
tions are  almost  modern,  though  the  machinery   for  refined 

134 


SIN  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-c] 

oppression  is  more  efficient  today  than  it  was  then.  We  are 
all  more  or  less  caught  in  that  machinery  and  are  unwitting 
or  helpless  partners  in  wrong  which  we  do  not  wish  to  per- 
form. 

A  recent  writer  has  suggested  that  we  take  a  Sabbath  morn- 
ing off  and  put  down  in  a  row  the  things  that  are  the  matter 
with  us  morally.  We  will  find,  he  thinks,  that  sins  will  prac- 
tically divide  off  into  two  lists.  In  one  list  will  be  original 
sins,  those  which  are  just  our  own,  which  we  know  all  about 
and  wdiich  we  can  "turn  on  and  off  personally  or  by  hand."- 
In  the  othor  list  will  be  the  sins  that  come  from  "what  might 
be  called  our  sin  factory,"  the  evils  which  we  allow  to  be 
forced  on  us  by  the  conditions  under  which  we  live.  We  do 
not  believe,  let  us  say,  in  cutthroat  competition,  but  our  com- 
petitors do;  what  can  we  do  about  it?  We  do  not  believe  in 
Sunday  study,  but  our  fellow  contestants  for  a  prize  do ; 
what  can  we  do  about  it?  As  head  of  a  corporation  or  of 
a  college  society,  can  a  man  act  just  as  he  would  all  by  him- 
self ?  In  many  ways  these  "machinery"  sins  are  more  dan- 
gerous than  the  personal  ones,  for  they  lead  us  to  unload  our 
responsibility  on  other  people,  specially  on  some  vague,  imper- 
sonal condition  for  which  no  one  can  be  blamed.  Over 
against  that  we  need  to  set  the  solid  assurance  of  personal 
responsibility  for  sin  which  runs  all  through  the  psalms. 

The  prevalence  of  sin  in  the  social  order  is  plain  also.  If 
God  should  mark  iniquities,  no  one  could  stand  before  him 
(i30-3)i>  and  in  such  eyes  as  his  no  man  living  is  righteous 
(143:2).  There  are  many  degrees  of  wrong,  and  men  may 
plead  their  own  efforts  to  be  right,  but  in  every  direction 
there  are  signs  of  men's  disregard  of  God.  That  does  not 
cast  a  shadow  over  human  life,  because  God  knows  more 
about  it  than  we  do  and  is  unfailingly  merciful  to  men  (103: 
10-12;  78:  39).  All  our  thought  of  sin  needs  to  be  kept  out  in 
the  light  of  the  love  of  God.  It  is  persistent  sin  that  makes 
that  love  a  consuming  fire. 

II 

The  seriousness  of  sin  in  the  social  order  will  always  be 
determined  by  the  ideal  of  the  social  order  by  which  we 
measure  offenses  against  it.  Whether  or  not  a  boy  likes  the 
spirit  of  the  college  in  which  he  is  studying  depends  on  the 

135' 


[X-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

kind  of  spirit  he  likes  in  a  college.  If  he  feels  that  "boys 
will  be  boys"  and  therefore  that  stealing  signs  and  sidewalks 
is  justifiable  college  humor;  if  he  feels  that  professors  are 
the  natural  enemies  of  students,  to  be  circumvented  when- 
ever possible,  and  that  cheating  in  examination  is  the  look- 
out of  the  professors ;  if  he  thinks  that  profanity  and  drink- 
ing are  essential  or  incidental  to  growing  manhood  and  the 
spirit  of  independence — then  he  may  find  the  campus  spirit 
satisfactory  where  men  of  other  ideals  might  think  it  quite 
otherwise.     Our  moral  judgments  reveal  our  moral  ideals. 

Suppose  we  set  out  with  the  thought  that  prosperity  is  the 
sign  of  a  right  social  order.  Under  it  everybody  is  to  have 
enough  income  so  that  he  is  not  miserable  and  hence  not  sin- 
ful. Then  our  idea  of  what  sin  is  will  be  very  different  from 
the  one  we  will  have  if  we  take  prosperity  as  a  mere  incidefit 
in  a  right  social  order,  while  we  put  moral  relationships  and 
right  conduct  foremost.  The  loth  psalm  and  the  78th  tell 
what  is  the  effect  of  getting  the  ideal  of  prosperity  into  the 
uppermost  place  in  thought  of  the  social  order.  It  clouds 
the  idea  of  any  higher  relationship  with  God.  Eras  of 
prosperity  are  not  generally  those  of  greatest  consciousness 
of  these  higher  relationships.  They  are  not  even  the  times 
of  greatest  social  service ;  sense  of  fraternity  with  needy 
people  does  not  quicken  at  such  times.  The  fact  is  that 
adversity  has  often  awakened  a  social  group  to  the  finer 
things  which  had  been  hid  from  them  by  their  prosperity. 
College  alumni  rejoice  in  a  great  gift  to  a  college,  but  they 
rally  to  it  more  when  a  call  for  help  goes  out  to  them.  Suc- 
cess tends  to  loosen  our  higher  bonds.  It  ought  not  to  do 
so,  and  it  need  not  do  so.  All  we  need  now  to  realize  is  that 
no  social  theory  which  puts  first  the  purely  temporal  pros- 
perity will  give  us  a  good  basis  for  judgment  regarding  social 
evils.  The  factory  that  brings  prosperity  may  be  also  the 
most  dangerous  influence  in  the  community  or  it  may  not  be; 
the  prosperity  it  brings  is  no  final  gauge. 

At  the  very  end  of  the  long  104th  psalm  is  a  sudden  turn 
which  carries  this  same  suggestion.  The  psalm  is  taken  up 
with  an  account  of  the  goodness  of  God  in  the  world, '  his 
care  of  nature,  his  maintenance  of  its  forces  and  all  that. 
Just  at  the  end,  out  of  a  clear  sky,  comes  the  35th  verse : 
"Let  sinners  be  consumed  out  of  the  earth,  and  let  the  wicked 
be  no  more  1"    It  is  so  amazing  that  some  scholars  have  sug- 

136 


SIN  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-c] 

gested  that  it  may  not  belong  there.  That  is  purely  a  crit- 
ical question  and  need  not  concern  us,  though  all  the  external 
argument  is  in  favor  of  its  retention.  But  the  internal  argu- 
ment seems  good  also.  "In  such  a  world  as  this,  how  utterly 
out  of  place  sin  is !"  seems  to  be  the  thought.  One  can 
imagine  worlds  without  the  beauty  and  care  of  this  one, 
where  sin  could  be  excused,  but  not  in  this  one.  A  place  can 
be  imagined  where  an  oath  would  be  defended,  but  not  in 
presence  of  one's  mother,  surely;  how  then  in  presence  of 
one's  God?  A  cesspool  somewhere,  perhaps,  but  not  in  the 
front  lawn  of  the  palace.  Sin  in  a  social  order  which  is 
patterned  on  God's  ideal  is  vastly  more  shameful  than  in  an 
order  without  such  a  pattern.  You  can  have  garish  color 
in  a  modernist  painting,  but  you  cannot  have  it  in  the  Sistine 
Madonna  nor  in  The  Last  Supper.  One  of  the  writers  asked 
to  be  kept  from  "the  dainties"  of  the  wicked  (141  :  4),  lest  his 
taste  be  perverted.  Social  ideals  are  greatly  needed  before 
we  can  pass  fair  judgment  on  the  seriousness  of  sin  or  of 
any  social  wrong. 

Ill 

Sin  in  the  social  order  must  be  gotten  rid  of  somehow. 
Chief  concern  is  not  for  its  results,  but  for  itself.  These 
writers  are  not  anxious  about  what  may  happen  to  them  be- 
cause of  their  sin ;  they  want  to  be  rid  of  the  sin  itself. 
There  is  no  plea  for  relief  from  penalties  while  they  keep  the 
sins.  They  look  for  redemption  from  iniquities  (130:8) 
and  release  from  sin  (51:2,  7),  If  those  things  are  gone, 
penalties  will  take  care  of  themselves,  but  there  could  be  no 
greater  calamity  than  to  take  away  the  penalties  and  leave 
the  sins.  Indeed,  the  fact  that  that  seems  sometimes  to  be 
done  is  one  of  the  baffling  experiences  of  these  writers.  The 
feeling  is  inevitable  that  in  a  right  social  order  temporal  suc- 
cess should  go  along  with  right  conduct  and  adversity  with 
wrong  conduct.  Ultimately,  when  the  purposes  of  moral 
character  are  accomplished,  that  will  doubtless  be  the  case. 
Just  now  cases  keep  rising  where  it  does  not  follow.  They 
rose  in  the  earlier  days  as  well  (94:3-7;  10:4-11)  and  were 
just  as  baffling.  A  prosperous  scoundrel  does  more  than  any 
other  single  factor  to  loosen  the  bonds  of  morality  in  a  com- 
munity.   A  successful  college  contestant  who  is  crooked  is  a 

137 


[X-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

tremendous  force  in  vitiating  the  atmosphere  of  a  campus. 
We  all  like  success  and  there  are  times  when  it  seems  worth 
getting  at  any  cost.  Our  eyes  get  fixed  on  results  and  we 
think  protests  against  methods  pharisaical.  We  think  that 
a  man  cannot  be  very  bad  or  he  would  not  get  on  so  well, 
or  else  we  think  that  it  does  not  , matter  whether  a  man  is 
bad  or  not  if  only  he  gets  on  well  enough.  That  is  the  result 
of  thinking  more  of  penalties  than  of  sins. 

And  yet  there  is  something  in  every  decent  man  that  pro- 
tests against  that.  "You  cannot  get  golden  conduct  out  of 
leaden  motives."  You  cannot  have  a  sound  social  order 
wherein  wrong  is  done  to  other  people  even  if  some  people 
do  prosper  by  it.  Sooner  or  later  right  will  assert  itself.  As 
Charles  A.  Dinsmore  puts  it :  "About  the  certainty  of  retri- 
bution there  is  perfect  unanimity"  (among  writers  of  great 
literature).  "Nemesis  follows  hard  after  every  transgressor. 
The  retribution  of  sin  is  sure,  swift,  terrible,  casting  far 
its  poisoned  net  and  entangling  sinner  and  saint,  the  mature 
and  the  unborn,  in  its  fearful  toils.  The  interpreters  of  the 
spiritual  world  are  one  in  their  vision  of  the  reality  of  the 
moral  -order  and  the  certainty  of  its  recoil  whenever  it  is  dis- 
turbed by  sin."  ("Atonement  in  Literature  and  Life,"  p. 
157.)  It  has  been  said  that  the  frontispiece  of  each  of  George 
Eliot's  works  might  fittingly  be  a  pair  of  scales  and  a  sword. 
Dr.  Dinsmore  thinks  it  would  serve  for  all  the  world's  great 
masterpieces.  "The  sure  movement  of  the  scales  and  flash 
of  the  sword  are  seen  in  them  all."  William  Dean  Howells 
"received  some  of  his  most  pronounced  ideas  of  the  average 
justice  of  the  universe  from  Dickens  and  the  way  he  dis- 
poses of  his  characters."  Nothing  else  than  ultimate  punish- 
ment for  sin  was  credible  to  men  as  sure  of  God  as  these 
psalmists  were.  Sometimes  they  spoke  as  though  evil  car- 
ried its  own  destruction  with  it  (34:21;  140:11)  and  some- 
times they  looked  to  see  God  himself  interpose  (139:  19),  but 
they  had  no  doubt  of  the  ultimate  outcome.  The  social  order 
in  God's  world  has  no  place  in  it  for  sin. 

But,  with  all  this,  they  believe  confidently  in  forgiveness. 
They  face,  as  we  must,  the  problem  of  finding  a  way  of  for- 
giveness which  will  not  encourage  men  in  sin.  There  have 
been  periods  when  God's  forgiveness  was  taken  for  granted. 
Easy  views  of  his  goodness  expect  him  to  overlook  sin.  The 
social     consciousness    necessarily    raises     a    question     about 

138 


SIN  AND  THE  SOCIAL  ORDER  [X-c] 

that.  Can  you  have  a  social  order  that  does  not  care  about 
sin?  Can  you  maintain  righteousness  if  you  let  righteous- 
ness and  unrighteousness  run  along  on  just  the  same  plane, 
if  honest  men  and  thieves  are  treated  just  alike,  if  liars  and 
truthtellers  are  undistinguished?  And  can  a  moral  universe 
exist  if  moral  distinctions  do  not  run  deep  enough  in  it  to 
count  ? 

That  is  the  problem  we  face  in  our  new  penal  methods. 
Will  they  help  to  make  men  hate  sin  or  will  they  loosen  the 
bonds  that  hold  men  back  from  it?  It  is  the  glory  of  the 
Christian  method  of  forgiveness  that  it  does  not  make  men 
think  more  lightly  of  sin  nor  encourage  them  to  go  on  in 
it.  Rather,  it  helps  forgiven  men  to  a  wider  sympathy  than 
is  revealed  in  the  psalms,  except  occasionally  (51:12-15). 
Men  who  know  they  have  done  wrong  are  not  therefore 
estopped  from  entering  into  movements  for  good.  That  very 
chapter  in  their  own  lives  may  be  used  in  God's  goodness  to 
make  them  mightier  in  service.  In  George  Eliot's  "Scenes 
of  Clerical  Life"  is  a  story  called  "Janet's  Repentance"  in 
which  Mr.  Tryon,  the  trusted  minister,  tells  Janet  the  story 
of  his  own  early  wrong-doing,  not  boastfully,  but  humbly, 
and  points  out  to  her  so  helpfully  the  way  of  release  from 
her  own  sin  that  Mr.  Moody  asked  the  consent  of  the  pub- 
lishers to  print  it  as  a  tract  for  use  in  his  evangelistic  meet- 
ings. Men  maimed  by  evils  in  the  social  life  can  use  their 
very  injuries  as  arguments  in  their  strife  against  them.  One 
of  the  most  effective  workers  for  temperance  has  been  Fred- 
erick W.  Charrington,  who  renounced  great  brewery  posses- 
sions in  the  East  End  of  London  and  took  the  losses,  that 
he  might  serve  the  opposite  forces  and  so  became  "a.  great 
spiritual  force  of  this  era."  On  a  stone  in  the  old  Tennant 
churchyard  in  New  Jersey  is  the  name  of  a  young  n^in  of 
whom  the  inscription  says  that  he  gave  up  his  worldly  gains 
and  prospects  "to  avoid  sin."  Such  men  are  challenged  by  the 
chance  to  help  in  correcting  sin  in  the  social  order,  if  they 
really  hate  it  enough. 

Boastful,  holier-than-thou  men  will  never  supply  the  cor- 
rection for  social  evils,  but  neither  will  men  who  compromise 
with  or  minimize  such  evils.  We  must  have  men  who  hate 
evil  with  a  deep  passion  because  they  love  men  with  an  equal 
passion  and  cannot  abide  the  things  that  ruin  them.  Near 
the  close  of  "Romola,"  after  Baldasarre  grapples  Tito  and 

139 


[X-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

drags  him  to  his  death,  George  Eliot  writes :  "Who  shall  put 
his  finger  on  the  work  of  justice  and  say,  'It  is  there'? 
Justice  is  like  the  kingdom  of  God — it  is  not  without  us  as  a 
fact,  it  is  within  us  as  a  great  yearning."  Men  with  the 
great  yearning  for  a  corrected  social  order  have  their  chance 
today  as  never  before. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Can  sin  be  explained  as  mere  defect  or  delayed  develop- 
ment? If  so,  is  a  lie  a  defective  truth  or  stealing  delayed 
development  toward  honesty?  Or,  are  the  men  who  commit 
these  deeds  on  the  way  to  righteousness  by  reason  of  them? 

Work  out  some  of  the  problems  arising  from  the  great 
increase  of  modern  corporate  life.  Are  stockholders,  bond 
owners,  partners  in  large  concerns,  responsible  for  evils  that 
may  be  there?  In  a  time  of  economic  distress  the  head  of  a 
large  corporation  laid  off  500  men  and  on  the  same  day  sub- 
scribed $50,000  personally  for  relief  of  distress  in  the  city. 
Can  you  justify  his  action  in  both  points? 


140 


CHAPTER  XI 


The  spirit  of  Praise  Within  the 
Social  Order 


DAILY    READINGS 

Eleventh  Week,  First  Day 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  give  thanks  unto  Jehovah, 

And  to  sing  praises  unto  thy  name,  O  Most  High; 

To  show  forth  thy  lovingkindness  in  the  morning. 

And  thy  faithfulness   every  night, 

With  an  instrument  of  ten  strings,  and  with  the  psaltery; 

With  a  solemn  sound  upon  the  harp. 

For  thou,  Jehovah,  hast  made  me  glad  through  thy  work: 

I  will  triumph  in  the  works  of  thy  hands. 

How  great  are  thy  works,   O   Jehovah! 

Thy  thoughts  are  very  deep. 

— Psalm  92: 1-5. 

You  recognize  this  as  the  familiar  Bonum  Est  of  the 
church  service  and  of  many  anthems.  The  title  in  our  Bibles 
calls  it  a  song  for  the  Sabbath  Day  and  it  was  appointed  to  be 
used  always  in  the  morning  service  of  the  temple  on  the 
seventh  day  of  the  week.  That  is  characteristic  of  the  He- 
brew idea  of  worship.  It  should  contain  petition  and  con- 
fession of  sin  and  humble  recognition  of  the  divine  hand  in 
history,  but  its  dominating  note  should  always  be  praise. 
And  this  psalm  starts  our  thought  of  the  element  of  praise 
in  the  social  order  just  where  it  should  be  started.  Here  is 
the  unfailing  ground  of  praise — God  himself  and  his  rela- 
tion to  the  world.  Surface  facts  may  change,  and  if  our 
joy  is  tied  to  them  it  may  fail  as  they  do.  The  only  note  of 
gladness  in  the  story  of  Jonah  is  in  4 :6,  where  the  account 
is  given  of  the  sudden  growth  of  the  vine  that  sheltered  him 

141 


[XI-2]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

while  he  watched  for  the  destruction  of  Nineveh:  "So  Jonah 
was  exceeding  glad  because  of  the  gourd."  And  when  the 
gourd  dried  up,  his  gladness  dried  up  with  it.  No  wonder 
he  was  glad,  but  his  gladness  was  not  rooted  deep  enough 
to  last.  After  the  gourd  had  dried  up,  God  remained,  and  if 
he  had  rooted  his  gladness  in  Him,  he  could  have  taken  the 
gourd  as  an  incident,  rejoicing  in  it.  It  does  not  do  to  grow 
too  dependent  on  surface  facts  in  the  social  order,  the  suc- 
cess of  this  or  that  incidental  movement  of  reform,  or  the 
advancement  of  this  or  that  person,  or  the  passing  pros- 
perity of  a  cause.  We  must  get  below  these  in  order  to  be 
secure  in  our  joy  over  them.  Unless  they  are  incidents  of 
God's  presence  in  the  social  order,  they  will  not  abide. 

Eleventh  Week,  Second  Day 

Sing  praises  to  God,  sing  praises: 

Sing  praises  unto  our  King,  sing  praises. 

For  God  is  the  King  of  all  the  earth: 

Sing  ye  praises  with  understanding. 

God  reigneth  over  the  nations: 

God  sitteth  upon  his  holy  throne. 

The  princes  of  the  peoples  are  gathered  together 

To  be  the  people  of  the  God  of  Abraham; 

For  the  shields  of  the  earth  belong  unto  God: 

He  is  greatly  exalted. 

— Psalm  47 :  6-9. 

Praises  with  understanding — that  is  the  point  today.  In 
one  of  Cowper's  hymns  he  says  that  "blind  unbelief  is  sure 
to  err."  There  is  blind  belief  also,  which  accepts  unintelli- 
gently  the  profoundest  truths.  Have  you  ever  met  a  scientific 
student  in  college  who  accepted  without  care  whatever  he 
thought  was  being  taught  in  the  classroom  and  noticed  how 
he  tended  to  misrepresent  the  teaching  and  to  announce  the 
most  amazing  "discoveries"  of  which  no  one  else  had  ever 
heard?  He  was  a  bhnd  believer.  In  the  same  way,  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  blind  praising,  our  doxologies  meaning  noth- 
ing to  us  or  aroused  by  wholly  unworthy  causes  of  praise. 
Mr.  Chesterton  says  that  while  Buddhist  or  other  "saints" 
may  sit  with  their  eyes  closed  in  contemplation  of  themselves 
or  of  God,  the  Christian  "saint"  is  always  represented  with 
eyes  wide  open,  looking  squarely  at  Hfe  at  its  worst  and  its 

142 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-3] 

best  and  sure  of  God  all  the  while.  We  can  never  hope  to 
praise  God  worthily  by  closing  our  eyes  to  hard  facts.  It  must 
be -intelligent  praise  that  honors  him.  The  little  extract  for 
today  gives  three  grounds  for  such  praise :  the  universal 
reign  of  God,  all  nations  being  included;  the  holy  throne  on 
which  he  sits;  the  overruling  possession  of  all  the  forces  of 
the  world — the  shields  of  the  earth  belong  to  God.  There  is 
no  part  of  the  social  order  from  which  God  is  excluded,  his 
purposes  for  it  are  not  temporal  merely,  hut  primarily  moral, 
and  all  questions  about  progress  are  to  be  moral  ones  at  the 
last;  and  all  defences  to  be  effective  must  have  that  same 
moral  value  which  will  make  than  worthy  of  their  relation 
to  him. 

Eleventh  Week,  Third  Day 

With  this  day  we  begin  an  ascent  of  praise,  rising  each 
day  to  the  end  of  the  week  in  thought  of  the  grounds  of 
praise.  Each  has  large  social  value.  Today  we  are  called  to 
praise  God  because  of  nature.  He  made  the  heavens  and 
that  sets  him  above  all  idols  and  gives  him  honor  and 
majesty.  In  this  sanctuary  of  the  world  which  he  has  erected 
are  strength  and  beauty. 

Oh  sing  unto  Jehovah  a  new  song: 

Sing  unto  Jehovah,  all  the  earth. 

Sing  unto  Jehovah,  bless  his  name; 

Show  forth  his  salvation  from  day  to  day. 

Declare  his  glory  among  the  nations. 

His  marvellous  works  among  all  the  peoples. 

For  great  is  Jehovah,  and  greatly  to  be  praised: 

He  is  to  be  feared  above  all  gods. 

For  all  the  gods  of  the  peoples  are  idols; 

But  Jehovah  made  the  heavens. 

Honor  and  majesty  are  before  him: 

Strength  and  beauty  are  in  his  sanctuary. 

— Psalm  96: 1-6. 

In  a  sermon  on  this  last  line,  which  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins 
preached  to  the  Williams  students,  he  suggests  how  often 
we  see  strength  in  nature  without  beauty  and  beauty  with- 
out strength,  but  that  no  complete  view  of  the  world  can  be 
taken  without  combining  them.     In  the  oak  or  the  elm,  he 

143 


[XI-4]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

says,  we  have  both.  Recall  Jesus'  frequent  use  of  nature  as 
argument »f or  God.  Can  you  place  his  use  of  these:  the  soil, 
the  grain  of  wheat,  the  mustard  seed,  the  fig  tree  and  "its 
barrenness,  the  wheat,  the  tares,  the  vine,  the  liHes,  the  sheep, 
the  sparrows,  the  hen  and  chickens,  the  wind,  the  looks  of 
the  sky,  pearls?  Some  one  asked  Henry  Ward  Beecher  how 
he  found  his  illustrations  for  sermons.  He  replied  that  they 
kept  finding  him,  that  no  one  could  cross  the  ferry  from 
Brooklyn  to  New  York  and  look  up  at  the  sky  without  find- 
ing things  to  say  about  God.  This  has  social  value  in  the 
demand  it  makes  on  us  to  see  that  all  men  have  a  chance  at 
nature  with  its  lessons.  The  increase  of  park  acreage  in 
cities,  the  provision  of  fresh  air  trips  for  the  poor  and  shut- 
in,  the  movement  toward  many  small  holdings  of  land  instead 
of  a  few  large  ones,  the  effort  to  improve  living  conditions 
in  the  country — all  these  are  wise.  They  help  to  keep  the 
social   forces  on  right  terms   with  nature. 

Eleventh  Week,  Fourth  Day 

Make  a  joyful  noise  unto  Jehovah,  all  ye  lands. 
Serve  Jehovah  with  gladness: 
Come  before  his  presence  with  singing. 
Know  ye  that  Jehovah,  he  is  God: 
It  is  he  that  hath  made  us,  and  we  are  his; 
We  are  his  people,  and  the  sheep  of  his  pasture. 
Enter  into  his  gates  with  thanksgiving. 
And  into  his  courts  with  praise: 
Give  thanks  unto  him,  and  bless  his  name. 
For    Jehovah   is   good;   his   lovingkindness   endureth   for- 
ever, 
And  his  faithfulness  unto  all  generations. 

— Psalm  100. 

It  is  this  psalm,  put  into  meter  and  beginning,  "All  people 
that  on  earth  do  dwell,"  that  has  given  us  our  Old  Hundredth 
music  to  which  we  sing  ordinarily  Bishop  Ken's  verse, 
"Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow."  We  have  it 
here  complete  and  it  ought  to  be  committed  to  memory.  It 
furnishes  a  second  step  of  ascent  in  praise — ma)i  and  God's 
care  for  him.  The  men  who  make  up  the  social  order  are 
made  and  kept  by  God.  They  belong  to  him  as  a  creature 
belongs  to  its  creator,   as  a  people  belong  to  the  ruler  and 

144 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-5] 

deliverer  under  whose  care  they  exist,  as  a  flock  belongs  to 
its  shepherd  under  whose  guidance  it  finds  food  and  drink 
and  shelter.  There  is  nothing  mechanical  about  it,  nothing 
arbitrary.  The  relationship  can  be  repudiated  or  refused,  or 
else  it  can  be  recognized  and  rejoiced  in.  It  is  there,  what- 
ever we  do  about  it.  The  whole  social  order  and  all  the 
groups  that  make  it  up  belong  to  God.  Injury  of  any  of  its 
parts  runs  back  to  mjury  of  his  possessions.  There  will 
always  be  a  false  note  in  our  praise  while  we  omit  other 
lands  or  other  peoples  or  other  groups  of  people  in  our  own 
land.  Whether  the  Hebrews  saw  such  a  wide  sweep  or  not, 
is  of  no  importance;  certainly  they  found  themselves  saying 
it.  Their  phrases  cover  "all  the  lands"  and  "all  generations." 
It  is  this  latter  assurance  of  the  reliability  of  God  for  gen- 
erations yet  to  come  that  makes  us  ready  to  attempt  enter- 
prises that  cannot  be  completed  in  our  own  day.  We  are 
tenants,  but  we  can  plant  orchards  and  forests  for  men  who 
will  come  after  we  are  gone.  God's  faithfulness  will  keep 
them  for  other  generations. 

Eleventh  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Praise  ye  Jehovah; 

For  it  is  good  to  sing  praises  unto  our  God; 

For  it  is  pleasant,  and  praise  is  comely. 

Jehovah  doth  build  up  Jerusalem; 

He  gathereth  together  the  outcasts  of  Israel. 

He  healeth  the  broken  in  heart, 

And  bindeth  up  their  wounds.    .     .     . 

Jehovah  upholdeth  the  meek: 

He  bringeth  the  wicked  down  to  the  ground.    .     .     . 

For  he  hath  strengthened  the  bars  of  thy  gates; 

He  hath  blessed  thy  children  within  thee.    .     .     . 

He  hath  not  dealt  so  with  any  nation; 

And  as  for  his  ordinances,  they  have  not  known  them. 

Praise  ye  Jehovah. 

— ^^Psalm    147:  1-3,   6,    13,   20. 

Many  of  the  scholars  think  this  psalm  was  written  for  use 
at  the  dedication  of  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  when  it  was  re- 
built after  the  exile  by  Nehemiah,  when,  we  are  told  (Neh. 
12:27),  there  was  much  singing  and  instrumental  music. 
It  would  be  fitting  for  such  a  time.  With  it  we  rise  again  in 
the  grounds  of  praise  in  the  social  order — the  sympathy  of 

145 


[XI-6]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

God  with  human  need.  When  a  pastor  told  a  troubled  man 
that  the  fault  with  him  was  that  he  would  not  count  God 
his  friend,  he  replied,  "No ;  I  hope  I  am  not  so  impertinent  as 
that."  It  seemed  to  him  too  much  to  talk  of  God  as  a  friend 
to  an  individual.  Here  is  the  assurance  that  God  under- 
stands human  need  and  is  active  regarding  it.  Suppose, 
therefore,  we  should  find  ourselves  challenged  by  social  need 
and  face  movements  for  its  supply;  we  have  the  right  to 
expect  God's  interest  in  them.  He  is  on  the  side  of  every 
moral  movement  and  with  every  redemptive  force.  There 
can  be  no  need  in  the  social  order  to  which  God  is  indifferent. 
It  is  his  challenge  to  us  who  are  in  the  order  to  give  his 
power  its  chance  in  us  to  correct  it.  That  is  the  way  he 
makes  a  real  order  in  the  world,  by  using  men  who  know 
him  and  care  for  their   fellows. 

Eleventh  Week,  Sixth  Day 

Praise  ye  Jehovah. 

Sing  unto  Jehovah  a  new  song, 

And  his  praise  in  the  assembly  of  the  saints. 

Let  Israel  rejoice  in  him  that  made  him: 

Let  the  children  of  Zion  be  joyful  in  their  King. 

Let  them  praise  his  name  in  the  dance: 

Let  them  sing,  praises  unto  him  with  timbrel  and  harp. 

For  Jehovah  taketh  pleasure  in  his  people: 

He  will  beautify  the  meek  with  salvation. 

Let  the  saints  exult  in  glory: 

Let  them  sing  for  joy  upon  their  beds. 

— Psalm  149: 1-5. 

Here  is  a  daring  word,  that  God  "takes  pleasure  in  his 
people!"  Yesterday  we  read  that  he  upholds  the  meek; 
today  we  add  that  he  beautifies  them.  Evidently  a  morose 
spirit  or  a  gloomy  heart  cannot  be  suitable  in  a  world  where 
such  things  can  be  thought  about  God.  And  the  higher 
ground  for  praise  which  we  find  here  is  the  presence  in  the 
world  of  a  redeemed  and  redeeming  group.  Whatever  is 
happening  to  us  personally,  thjere  is  no  missing  the  fact  of 
that  group  in  the  social  order.  If  we  should  need  to  say  that 
the  gospel  of  salvation  is  not  working  everywhere,  we  can- 
not fail  to  see  that  it  is  working  somewhere.  There  are 
people  in  whom  God  takes  pleasure.    There  are  people  whom 

146 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-7] 

he  is  beautifying  with  salvation.  When  Mill  said  that  it  is 
well  for  men  to  remember  that  once  a  man  of  the  name  of 
Socrates  walked  the  earth,  Harnack  added  that  it  was  even 
better  for  them  to  remember  that  a  man  of  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  once  walked  the  earth.  We  can  go  on  to  add 
that  it  is  well  to  remember  that  even  today  there  are  thou- 
sands of  people  who  walk  the  earth  showing  the  power  of 
God  in  their  daily  lives.  That  is  what  we  can  mean  by  the 
clause  in  the  creed,  "I  believe  in  the  communion  of  saints." 
We  are  not  alone  in  the  social  order,  and  our  judgment  of 
it  ought  to  include  these  groups  of  redeemed  people  who 
are  giving  themselves  to  the  service  of  God  and  men.  They 
are  in  cities  and  country,  in  hospitals  and  prisons,  in  home 
and  foreign  lands — just  quiet  people  who  are  praising  God 
in  their  lives.  "They  do  God's  will;  to  them  all  one  if  on 
the  earth  or  in  the  sun." 

Eleventh  Week,  Seventh  Day 

O  praise  Jehovah,  all  ye  nations; 

Laud  him,  all  ye  peoples. 

For  his  lovingkindness  is  great  toward  us; 

And  the  truth  of  Jehovah  endureth  for  ever. 

Praise    ye   Jehovah. 

— Psalm  1-17. 

This  exquisite  little  psalm,  the  shortest  in  the  collection,  is 
another  that  ought  to  be  committed  to  memory.  Probably  it 
was  intended  as  a  doxology  for  use  at  the  end  of  other 
psalms.  We  have  had  premonitions  of  it  in  several  readings 
of  the  week,  but  it  brings  us  to  the  climax  of  our  ascent  of 
praise.  We  have  thought  of  nature,  of  man  and  God's  rela- 
tion to  him,  of  God's  sympathy  with  human  need,  and  of 
the  presence  In  the  world  of  a  redeemed  and  redeeming 
group.  Here  we  find  the  highest  ground  of  praise,  as  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week  we  found  the  surest  ground,  in 
God  himself  and  the  two  great  traits  of  his  character  zvhich 
are  so  often  taught  in' the  psalms,  his  lovingkindness  and  his 
truth.  Notice  how  universal  the  psalm  is,  how  completely  it 
surpasses  every  thought  of  narrowness.  If  there  were  He- 
brews who  felt  other  nations  shut  out  from  God's  care  or 
from  obligation  to  him,  they  must  have  choked  on  this 
psalm.    Even  if  we  accent  the  pronoun  "us,"  as  some  want  us 

147 


[XI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

to  do,  it  still  leaves  the  psalm  universal,  for  it  implies  that 
the  goodness  of  God  to  a  group  is  intended  to  rejoice  the 
hearts  of  the  whole.  But  that  accent  is  wholly  unnecessary. 
The  "us"  is  as  wide  as  the  nations  and  peoples.  And  the 
plan  of  God  will  not  be  complete  till  the  praise  is  as  universal 
as  this  call  is.  As  to  the  social  order,  are  there  any  two 
virtues  which  are  more  needed  than  the  two  here  suggested? 
Which  seems  to  mean  more  to  you — lovingkindness  (mercy) 
or  truth?  Of  which  is  our  social  order  in  greater  need? 
They  are  traits  of  God's  dealing  with  men.  They  do  not 
need  to  be  introduced  into  the  world ;  they  are  here.  They 
need  only  to  be  applied,  worked  out  by  the  people  of  God 
as  God  himself  is  working  them  into  the  social  fabric. 
Without  either  of  them  the  social  order  will  fail.  But  it 
will  not  fail,  for  they  are  here,  since  God  is  here. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

Praise  is  essentially  a  social  fact.  We  may  sing  solos,  but 
we  sing  them  to  a  group  and  when  once  they  are  sung  they 
become  everybody's  property.  We  are  not  trained  to  praise, 
but  only  in  the  method  of  praising.  The  fact  rises  out  of 
something  deep  within  us.  In  such  a  world  as  this  it  is  only 
seemly  that  the  voice  of  praise  should  be  heard.  Praise  is 
comely  for  the  upright  {33:  i).  It  is  a  good  thing;  an  appro- 
priate thing,  to  give  thanks  unto  God  and  to  praise  his  name 
(92:1;  147:1).  One  of  the  early  writers  said  that  praise  is 
the  rent  we  owe  to  God  for  his  goodness  to  us.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  suggests  the  prayer :  "Lord,  help  us  to 
repay  in  service  one  to  another  the  debt  of  thine  unbene- 
fited  merits  and  mercies."  All  the  great  religions  and  even 
their  side-issues  make  provision  for  music  in  their  services, 
and  while  most  non-Christian  religious  music  is  minor,  yet 
even  so  it  provides  for  the  expression  of  the  spirit  of  thanks- 
giving. 


The  psalms  are  songs,  expressing  much  individual  desire, 
but  gathering  up  that  same  desire  for  many  others  than  the 
singer.  Most  of  them  are  distinctly  plural,  intended  for 
social  use.  The  Hebrew  name  of  the  whole  collection  is 
Sepher   Tehillim,   Book   of    Songs   of    Praise.     And    though 

148 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-c] 

only  one  psalm  is  definitely  described  in  its  title  as  a  song 
of  praise  (145),  yet  the  title  is  appropriate  for  the  whole 
book,  because  "thanksgiving  is  the  very  life  of  the  Psalms, 
even  of  those  in  which  there  breathes  most  the  language  of 
complaint."  (Perowne,  "The  Psalms,"  vol.  I,  p.  57.)  Our 
English  word  Hallelujah  is  taken  over  from  the  Hebrew  and 
means.  Praise  ye  Jehovah.  It  occurs  over  and  over  in  these 
songs.  Part  of  the  word  gives  the  title  to  two  sections  in  the 
collection.  Psalm  136  is  known  as  the  Great  Hallel  and  is 
arranged  for  responsive  use  by  the  appearance  in  every 
stanza  of  the  same  response,  "For  His  lovingkindness  endur- 
eth  forever !"  Here  plainly  is  provision  for  social  praise. 
Can  you  not  imagine  that  single  refrain  rising  with  increasing 
volume  from  a  congregation  of  worshippers?  But  the  better 
known  "Egyptian  Hallel"  consists  of  Psalms  113-118;  it  was 
sung  on  festival  occasions  throughout  the  j^ear  ?ind  was  the 
"hymn"  sung  by  our  Lord  and  the  disciples  as  they  went 
out  from  the  upper  room  after  the  first  observance  of  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  (Matt.  26:30).  It  tells  the 
story  of  deliverance  from  Egypt  and  from  other  oppression 
and  calls  to  praise  for  the  lovingkindness  of  God.  And  this 
sort  of  thing  was  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  faith.  It  had 
its  fast  days  and  seasons,,  but  many  more  feast  days  and  sea- 
sons. Indeed  only  one  fast  day  was  prescribed.  Provision 
was  made  for  one  week  of  outdoor  life  when  the  people  were 
to  live  in  booths,  free  from  the  care  of  houses,  just  being 
glad,  reminding  themselves  of  the  care-free  life  which  their 
fathers  had  led  in  the  wilderness  under  divine  guidance,  and 
rejoicing  in  the  completion  of  the  harvest.  Many  of  the 
psalms  were  prepared  for  journeys  and  for  particular  events 
which  recurred  in  the  national  life.  It  was  a  singing  faith. 
The  whole  collection  of  its  songs  closes  with  a  grand  crash 
of  praise,  in  which  voices,  instruments,  nature,  histor3^  and 
the  individual  soul  are  called  on  to  attempt  justice  to  the 
spirit  of  praise    (145-150). 

This  spirit  is  still  in  the  Christian  faith  and  the  psalms 
have  entered  into  Christian  worship  more  than  anj^  other 
single  book  of  the  Bible.  The  92nd  psalm  is  sung  by  choirs 
and  congregations  as  the  Bonum  Est ;  the  95th  is  the  Venite 
of  the  church  service;  the  96th  is  the  Cantate  Domino;  the 
looth  is  the  familiar  Jubilate;  and  even  the  67th,  which  is  the 
Deus  Miseratur  of  our  Christian  worship,  turns  into  a  hymn 

149 


[XI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

of  triumphant  praise  before  it  is  closed.  In  all  Christian 
ages  there  have  been  churches  which  have  felt  so  strongly 
the  value  of  these  psalms  that  they  have  not  permitted  any 
other  songs  to  be  used  in  formal  worship,,  and  while  the 
main  body  of  believers  has  not  been  ready  io  agree  to  that 
limitation,  it  remains  as  a  suggestive  hint  of  the  age-long 
worth  of  songs  written  before  the  coming  of  Christ.  They 
have  so  much  of  the  highest  religious  spirit  that  .Christian 
believers  can  use  them  without  a  sense  of  lack  of  any  note 
which  their  faith  requires.  And  even  without  the  limitation 
desired  it  is  still  true  that  these  psalms  make  up  a  larger 
part  of  the  worship  of  the  Church  than  any  other  one  ele- 
ment. 

II 

In  the  daily  studies  we  have  found  part  of  the  secret  of 
this  power  of  the  psalms  in  praise — the  broad  and  unchang- 
ing grounds  which  they  suggest  for  it.  They  move  on  no 
superficial  level,  not  proposing  mere  dead  levels  of  praise. 
We  need  not  go  over  the  grounds  again,  but  several  will  be 
well  to  review.  Take  the  call  to  praise  with  reference  to 
the  setting  of  the  social  order,  the  world  in  which  we  must 
live  as  men.  There  is  doubtless  a  point  of  view  from  which 
this  world  can  be  described  as  a  "wilderness  of  woe,"  since 
it  is  not  our  permanent  home,  as  heaven  is  to  be.  But  it 
actually  is  our  home  for  the  present  and  our  Father  made  it 
and  keeps  it  (95*5;  104  throughout).  The  heavens  are  the 
work  of  his  fingers,  he  ordained  the  moon  and  the  stars 
(8:3).  The  earth  is  full  of  his  lovingkindness  (33:5).  It 
belongs  to  him  with  all  its  fulness  and  with  all  that  dwell 
in  it  (24:1).  Any  good  commentary  will  show  that  the 
29th  psalm  is  a  vivid  account  of  a  storm  sweeping  in  from 
the  sea;  as  it  dies  away  and  the  sun  comes  out  again,  "in  'his 
temple  everything  saith,  Glory!"  Open  the  book  of  psalms 
to  almost  any  page,  and  see  if  you  do  not  find  some  work  of 
nature  given  as  a  ground  of  praise  to  God.  It  is  here  we 
must  live;  it  is  under  these  conditions  that  any  social  order 
must  be  formed ;  it  is  by  these  forces  that  any  social  correc- 
tion must  be  m.ade. 

In  the  fourth  week  we  noticed  that  the  world  as  it  is  con- 
stituted is  fitted  for  the  development  of  the  human  race  in 
the  highest  virtues.    It  comes  to  mind  again  here.    This  ought 

150 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-c] 

to  give  us  a  Christian  point  of  view  toward  physical  science. 
So  far  is  it  from  any  colHsion  with  the  Christian  faith  that  it 
ought  to  be  counted  its  firmest,  ally.  Whatever  truth  it  may 
discover  about  the  world  and  its  forces  will  be  onl}^  so  much 
more  light  on  the  works  of  God's  hands,  in  which  even  the 
Hebrew  writer  rejoiced  (92:4,  5).  God  has  not  hid  his  way 
ill  nature  to  keep  us  from  finding  it  out,  but  to  induce  us  to 
find  it  out.  IVe  cannot  find  out  too  much  about  the  world 
if  zi'c  count  it  our  Father's  world.  We  are  meant  to  think 
his  thoughts  after  him,  to  consider  his  heavens,  the  moon 
and  the  stars,  his  wonders  in  the  deep.  Indeed;  there  is  no 
physical  science  which  could  not  find  its  warrant  in  the  words 
of  these  psalms.  The  great  discoveries  of  the  past  have  some- 
times been  received  with  suspicion,  lest  they  unsettle  some 
elements  of  religious  faith.  Surely  there  is  experience  enough 
by  this  time  to  make  every  religious  man  wish  well  to  every 
laboratory  or  scientific  expedition  in  the  world.  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Truth,  and  to  him  all  truths  in  all  fields  will  draw  as 
steel  fihngs  draw  to  a  magnet.  The  social  order  needs  all 
the  discoveries  that  can  be  made  in  this  world  of  God,  and 
when  it  is  declared  that  science  is  advancing  the  human  race, 
let  no  religious  man  resent  it;  let  him  rather  rejoice  in  it. 
At  the  root  of  it,  the  fact  is  religious.  God  has  made  the 
world  and  he  keeps  it.  Man  whom  he  loves  will  come  to  a 
sound  social  order  by  knowing  his  world  all  the  better.  All 
that  we  learn  deepens  our  note  of  praise. 

It  wnll  be  well  also  to  think  again  of  the  value  in  the  world 
of  the  forces  for  good,  the  corrective  agencies  which  appear 
in  groups  of  redeemed  and  redeeming  men.  Once  in  a  while 
the  other  forces  get  such  prominence  that  they  seem  to  take 
the  field.  It  is  only  a  seeming.  Any  Hst  of  the  redemptive 
forces  of  a  great  city  will  reveal  a  vast  amount  of  overlap- 
ping and  unwisdom  in  method  and  organization.  No  doubt 
one  of  the  longest  steps  toward  the  correction  of  social 
evils  would  be  the  destruction  of  many  of  the  corrective 
agencies,  as  a  social  worker  has  said.  But  even  so,  the  pres- 
ence of  such  agencies  always  implies  the  existence  of  at  least 
a  small  body  of  people  who  care  enough  to  try  to  do  some- 
thing about  the  evils.  Every  man  who  in  his  own  turn  cares 
about  those  evils  is  partner  with  a  multitude  of  others  whose 
names  he  cannot  know,  but  who  are  working  in  the  same 
campaign  in  other  parts  of  the  field. 

151 


[XI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Dr.  Robert  Clements  tells  that  in  a  Canadian  village  more 
men  volunteered  for  the  European  campaign  than  could  be 
taken,  and  the  volunteers  were  compelled  to  draw  slips  of 
paper  to  determine  who  should  go.  .  The  successful  ones 
drew  papers  designated  with  a  cross  mark.  One  lad  hurried 
home  to  his  minister  father  rejoicing  that  he  was  to  go,  say- 
ing, "When  my  turn  came,  I  just  prayed  that  I  would  draw 
the  cross."  In  a  far.  deeper  sense  than  the  boy  ever  meant, 
the  hope  of  the  social  order  turns  on  a  multitude  of  men 
who  have  done  that  very  thing,  who  have  not  wanted  the 
eas}^  thing  or  the  pleasant  thing,  but  the  thing  that  will  help 
most,  that  will  cost.  The  presence  of  so  many  such  men  is 
ground  for  praise  and  for  unfailing"  assurance  about  the  out- 
come of  social  movements. 

In  the  long  sweep  of  history  these  men  find  God  on  their 
side  among  them  that  help  them  (118:7).  It  is  he  who  has 
taught  their  hands  to  war  and  their  fingers  to  fight  (144:1) 
and  they  realize  him  as  the  abiding  fact  in  the  progress  of 
the  generations  (144:4).  And  he  becomes  at  the  last,  both 
for  himself  and  for  the  work  which  he  does  among  men,  the 
deepest  ground  for  praise.  It  is  a  favorite  expression  of 
President  McClure  that  he  finds  God  beautiful,  and  when 
James  Russell  Lowell  was  facing  the  national  needs,  he  said, 
"I  take  great  comfort  m  God." 

Ill 

It  is  at  this  point  of  its  joy  that  religion  makes  its  first 
appeal  to  many  in  the  social  order.  Can  it  brighten  life? 
Does  it  reveal  something  to  be  glad  of?  Is  it  restrictive  or 
inspiring?  No  one  has  put  religion  out  of  his  life  because 
it  seemed  to  him  too  joyous.  The  multitudes  who  refuse  to 
go  to  church  services  on  the  Sabbath  are  not  complaining  that 
these  services  encourage  them  too  much  in  the  life  battle. 
Rather,  they  think  they  can  find  larger  cheer  and  rest  in 
other  things.  To  a  great  many  people,  impossible  as  it  may 
seem  to  us,  Disraeli's  expression  in  "Coningsby"  is  not  too 
strong :  "Youth  is  a  blunder ;  manhood  a  struggle ;  old  age  a 
regret."  Most  of  us  count  that  blasphemy,  but  to  these 
people  it  represents  their  experience.  They  are  hot-foot  in 
search  for  redeeming  joys  in  life.  They  v;ant  the  singing 
elements  discovered. 

152 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-c] 

Nor  does  Carlyle's  grim  counsel  overcome  that  desire. 
He  warns  us  that  we  are  not  in  this  world  to  be  happy, 
but  to  do  our  dut}'-.  And  that  is  true,  but  it  does  not  mean 
that  we  are  not  to  be  happy.  The  contrast  between  the  two 
facts  of  duty  and  happiness  is  not  necessary.  There  is 
always  something  awry  within  us  when  religion  is  irksome 
and  duty  a  bugbear.  We  can  learn  to  delight  to  do  the  will 
of  God  (40:7,  8)  and  no  one  can  read  the  119th  psalm  with 
its  many  references  to  the  law  of  God  without  realizing  that 
to  the  writer  it  was  an  inspiration  and  not  chiefly  a  restric- 
tion. It  did  not  shut  him  in ;  it  let  him  out.  When  we  get  a 
social  order  expressive  of  the  will  of  God  for  men,  it  will 
not  be  one  that  chafes  the  free  spirits  of  men,  but  a  joy- 
ous one  whose  main  note  will  be  cheer.  It  is  not  the  thought 
of  the  psalmists  that  strength  enough  barely  to  hold  out  may 
be  available,  but  rather  that  men  can  feel  their  strength 
steadily  renewed  (103:5),  can  have  a  sense  of  perpetual 
youth. 

So  it  becomes  peculiarly  the  obligation  of  men  who  count 
religion  a  vital  thing  to  be  on  the  side  of  movements  which 
aim  to  deepen  the  note  of  joy  in  the  social  order.  It 
may  be  necessary  to  oppose  plans  for  amusement,  and  it  may 
be  only  sensible  to  resist  schemes  for  what  some  men  will 
call  pleasure.  They  may  be  actually  cutting  the  root  of  joy. 
Recreation  is  a  possibility  not  yet  worked  out.  Much  that 
goes  by  that  name  is  not  re-creaticn  at  all,  but  is  destructive 
of  vital  forces.  It  is  possible  for  college  athletics  to  pass  the 
bounds  of  recreation  and  become  only  a  kind  of  business. 
Great  Sunday  excursions,  plans  for  excessive  pleasures, 
maintenance  of  places  of  resort  which  are  nominally  for  the 
happiness  of  people  but  which  actually  bring  ruin  to  lives — 
these  can  be  opposed  in  no  kill-joy  spirit. 

Plenty  of  men  are  watching  for  the  chance  to  capitalize  for 
their  own  profit  the  pleasure  desires  of  society  and  to  reap 
a  financial  harvest  without  regard  to  the  ruin  they  may  work 
in  the  social  order.  Corrupt  dance  halls,  road  houses,  saloons, 
dives  of  all  kinds,  have  for  their  only  public  argument  the 
legitimate  wish  of  people  for  pleasure,  sometimes  even  called 
happiness.  The  reply  to  that  argument  is  not  the  denial  of 
the  right  of  people  in  God's  world  to  be  happy,  but  the 
denial  that  anything  rightly  called  happiness  can  come  out 
of  such  enterprises.     The  weakness  of  most  cheap  plans  for 

.     153 


[XI-c]  PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

putting  joy  into  life  is  shown  in  the  necessity  for  strength- 
ening the  potion  constantly;  the  plans  do  not  satisfy,  they 
only  inflame.  Professor  James  Moffat  of  Mansfield  College, 
Oxford,  reminds  us  that  "hardly  anything  in  our  nature  is 
more  characteristic  than  what  we  choose  to  laugh  at  or  the 
tone  in  which  we  laugh.  If  there  is  anything  vulgar  or 
coarse  or  vain  or  sour  or  malicious  lying  in  our  hearts,  it  will 
be  apt  to  come  out  in  our  laughter."  The  Senior  week  num- 
ber of  the  Cornell  Widow  (1916)  asked  returning  alumni  at 
commencement  to  laugh  about  other  things  than  drinking  and 
escapades  of  the  lower  sort.  A  good  college  theme  would 
be,  "The  Moral  Significance  of  Laughter." 

But  all  of  these  mistaken  ways  of  finding  joy  simply  deepen 
the  responsibility  of  those  who  love  men  for  seeing  to  it  that 
-provision  is  made  in  the  social  group  and  in  the  social  order 
for  happiness  as  well  as  for  comfort  and  prosperity.  Happi- 
ness cannot  be  made  a  direct  concern  of  the  whole  life. 
It  would  pall  on  any  spirit  if  it  occupied  all  the  attention. 
Much  of  the  happiness  of  life  must  be  found  in  the  work 
that  men  do.  Conditions  must  be  created,  are  being  created 
rapidly,  under  which  work  can  bring  joy  and  not  mere  burden. 
Meredith  in  his  Letters  (vol.  II,  p.  478)  wrote  a  friend: 
"I  have  lived  long  enough  to  see  that  our  chief  agonizer  and 
thwarter  is  impatience.  One  of  the  prettiest  spectacles  to  me 
is  a  costermonger's  donkey  going  blithely  at  a  trot.  Our 
maxim  should  be.  Merry  in  harness — while  we  have  to  serve." 
It  is  well  put.  Doing  our  bit  in  the  world  is  the  most  joyous 
part  of  life,  and  when  a  man  has  to  leave  his  task  to  have 
a  good  time  something  is  wrong  with  the  way  he  fits  into  his 
task  or  with  the  method  required  for  the  task.  Increasingly 
that  is  being  recognized  in  the  great  industries,  factories, 
stores,  offices.  It  is  an  instance  of  the  place  that  praise  has  in 
a  sound  social  order,  for  praise  is  only  the  recognition  of 
our  joys  as  the  gift  of  God. 

Also  it  is  necessary  that  provision  be  made  for  happiness 
arising  outside  of  our  tasks.  Movements  in  this  regard  are 
notable  in  our  day.  Cities  are  providing  for  the  pleasure  of 
the  people,  concerts  open  to  the  poorest  are  brightening  the 
lives  of  many,  art  collections  are  no  longer  shut  out  from 
them,  playgrounds  are  making  the  child  life  of  cities  and 
tow'ns  happier.  Meanwhile  hundreds  of  young  men  and 
women  are  finding  a  life  task  in  thinking  out  the  problems  of 

154 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAISE  [XI-c] 

happiness  for  whole  communities  or  for  groups  within  the 
social  order.  And  all  it  needs  to  make  it  wholly  acceptable 
and  beautiful  is  that  we  who  know  the  God  who  made  and 
keeps  the  world  shall  keep  him  in  the  minds  of  ourselves  and 
others,  letting  our  happiness  lead  us  to  praise.  A  joyous 
social  order  is  the  only  order  which  can  be  worthy  of  the 
faith  which  we  profess. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Take  up  more  fully  the  attitude  which  Christian  believers 
ought  to  take  toward  discoveries  or  theories  in  physical 
science  which  seem  to  contradict  important  items  of  religious 
faith.  There  can  be  warfare  between  scientists  and  theo- 
logians ;  why  can  there  not  be  warfare  between  science  and 
religion  ? 

Discuss  the  best  methods  of  dealing  with  cynicism,  espe- 
cially with  men  who  pride  themselves  on  being  cjaiical.  Look 
up  the  Greek  origin  of  the  word  itself. 

Has  the  Church  a  duty  to  substitute  worthy  means  of  pleas- 
ure if  it  feels  it  must  oppose  unworthy  ones?  If  so,  does 
it  imply  that  dance  halls  and  billiard  rooms  should  be  pro- 
vided in  church  buildings? 

Work  out  a  principle  governing  the  use  of  the  Sabbath  for 
pleasure.  Does  it  help  you  here  to  make  a  distinction  between 
pleasure  and  happiness?    For  which  is  the  Sabbath  intended? 


155 


CHAPTER  XII 


The  Spirit  of  Prayer  in  the 
Social  Order 


DAILY    READINGS 


Twelfth  Week,  First  Day 

It  is  Vv^ell  to  begin  any  thought  of  prayer  with  the  fact 
that  it  is  addressed  to  some  one.  No  man  will  ever  pray 
sincerely  unless  he  counts  God  trustworthy.  If  God's  word 
does  not  mean  much  to  himself,  it  certainly  cannot  mean 
much  to  us.  Or  if  God  does  not  take  us  and  our  needs 
seriously,  we  cannot  pray  with  any  spirit.  This  gives  force 
to  the  saying  that  God  has  magnified  his  word  above  every- 
thing else  in  his  revelation  of  himself. 

I  will  give  thee  thanks  with  my  whole  heart: 

Before  the  gods  will  I  sing  praises  unto  thee. 

I  will  worship  toward  thy  holy  temple, 

And  give  thanks  unto  thy  name  for  thy  lovingkindness 

and  for  thy  truth: 
For  thou  hast  magnified  thy  word  above  all  thy  name. 
In  the  day  that  I  called  thou  answeredst  me. 
Thou  didst  encourage  me  with  strength  in  my  soul. 
All    the    kings    of    the    earth    shall    give    thee    thanks,    O 

Jehovah, 
For  they  have  heard  the  words  of  thy  mouth. 
Yea,  they  shall  sing  of  the  ways  of  Jehovah; 
For  great  is  the  glory  of  Jehovah. 

— Psalm  138: 1-5. 

We  say  that  some  men's  word  is  as  good  as  their  bond.     In 
social  relations  only  such  men  have  any  value.     In  spiritual 

156 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-2] 

relations  only  a  God  whose  word  is  the  securest  fact  about 
him  will  command  our  prayers.  When  a  sceptical  man  tried 
to  unsettle  an  old  woman's  trust  in  God  for  her  future 
safety  by  asking  her  what  she  would  do  if  she  found  her- 
self in  hell  after  all,  she  replied  that  it  coidd  not  make 
half  the  difference  to  her  that  it  would  make  to  God,  for  in 
that  case  his  word  would  have  been  broken  and  the  loss  of 
her  soul  would  be  a  small  thing  compared  to  that.  One  of 
the  first  social  values  of  prayer  is  that  it  tends  to  keep  alive 
in  us  the  assurance  of  the  reliability  of  God.  We  find  as  we 
practice  it  that  we  are  using  precedents  and  assurances  based 
on  what  we  know  of  him.  Apply  the  same  principle  to  the 
relation  a  body  of  students  hold  to  the  authorities  of  the 
college.  If  they  believe  them  to  be  reliable  and  trustworthy, 
does  it  not  tend  to  increase  their  readiness  to  present  to  them 
needs  which  ought  to  be  supplied?  And  does  it  not  also  tend 
to  strengthen  the  bonds  of  the  college  group?  Can  there  be. 
a  social  order  not  founded  on  mutual  trust? 

Twelfth  Week,  Second  Day 

For  though  Jehovah  is  high,  yet  hath  he  respect  unto  the 

lowly; 
But  the  haughty  he  knoweth  from   afar. 
Though  I  walk  in  the  midst  of  trouble,  thou  wilt  revive 

me; 
Thou  wilt   stretch  forth  thy  hand  against  the  wrath  of 

mine  enemies. 
And  thy  right  hand  will  save  me. 
Jehovah  will  perfect  that  which  concerneth  me: 
Thy  lovingkindness,  O  Jehovah,  endureth  for  ever; 
Forsake  not  the  works  of  thine  own  hands. 

—Psalm   138:6-8. 

Here  appears  one  of  the  social  values  of  prayer,  in  taking 
away  the  weakening  sense  of  inferiority.  Being  poor  is  not 
hard  to  bear ;  it  is  feeling  poor  that  hurts.  Holding  a  lowly 
position  is  not  hard ;  it  is  the  feeling  of  humiliation  in  being 
there  that  is  hard.  No  social  order  can  be  sound  or  final 
when  it  rests  on  the  degradation  of  any  of  its  individuals. 
Of  course  the  humble  work  of  the  world  must  be  done. 
There  is  dirty  work  that  cannot  yet  be  avoided  by  everybody. 
As  the  story  of  "The  Servant  in  the  House"  Suggests,  drains 

157 


[XII-3]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

must  be  cleaned  and  danger  of  disease  must  be  run  by  some 
people  for  the  sake  of  the  whole.  Perhaps'  some  day  there 
may  be  much  less  of  such  work  required ;  possibly  machinery 
may  do  away  with  it  all.  But  we  have  no  near  corrective 
for  the  whole  of  it.  Men  in  the  necessary  lowly  positions 
must  be  helped  in  some  other  way.  That  way  is  to  develop 
in  them  a  sense  of  intrinsic  worth,  of  assured  place  in  the 
general  scheme.  Prayer  will  do  that  if  it  is  given  a  chance, 
for  it  shows  how  purely  incidental  the  differences  are,  and 
how  certainly  the  God  who  is  over  all  has  respect  to  the 
lowly.  This  same  influence  would  keep  the  man  who  knows 
he  is  in  high  place  from  arrogance  or  haughtiness.  Over 
against  the  God  of  the  whole  plan  and  over  against  the  whole 
plan  itself,  human  places  are  not  on  such  different  levels. 
All  are  high,  since  the  plan  is  high ;  all  who  occupy  the 
places  should  be  humble,  for  the  plan  is  the  great  thing  after 
all. 

Twelfth  Week,  Third  Day 

//  prayer  did  nothing  more  than  put  courage  into  a  man 
it  would  have  tremendous  social  value.  Cowardice  has  crip- 
pled more  plans  for  social  betterment  than  any  other  one 
v^eakness.  Men  have  been  afraid  of  the  bad  results  for 
themselves,  the  enemies  they  might  raise  up,  the  perils  to 
causes  of  which  they  were  fond.  What  is  the  explanation  of 
the  frequent  consent  to  help  a  cause  of  reform  on  condition 
that  one's  name  be  njot  used?  Jesus's  own  cause  went  more 
slowly  during  his  lifetime  on  earth  because  some  men  were 
his  disciples  "but  secretly  for  fear  of  the  Jews"  (John  19: 
38).  So  long  as  we  draw  our  sense  of  security  from  the 
relation  we  hold  to  our  fellows,  we  will  not  be  ready  to  take 
our  stand  against  them  even  though  they  are  wrong.  Prayer 
gives 'us  a  sense  of  larger,  higher  safety.  It  is  wholly  com- 
patible with  vigorous  daring  and  attack  on  evil.  "The  wicked 
flee  when  no  man  pursueth,  but  the  righteous  are  bold  as  a 
lion"  (Prov.  28:1),  is  as  true  here  as  anywhere.  The  pray- 
ing man  flees — to  God.  When  Cromwell's  soldiers  were 
seen  to  fall  on  their  knees  in  prayer  just  before  an  attack, 
royalist  leaders  thought  it  a  sign  of  fear,  but  their  superiors 
told  them  they  were  mistaken,  that  such  men  would  be  all  the 
more  dangerous  when  they  had  prayed. 

158 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-4I 

Deliver  me,  O  Jehovah,  from  mine  enemies: 

I  flee  unto  thee  to  hide  me. 

Teach  me  to  do  thy  will; 

For  thou  art  my  God: 

Thy  Spirit  is  good; 

Lead  me  in  the  land  of  uprightness. 

Quicken  me,  O  Jehovah,  for  thy  name's  sake: 

In  thy  righteousness  bring  my  soul  out  of  trouble. 

And  in  thy  lovingkindness  cut  off  mine  enemies, 

And  destroy  all  them  that  afflict  my  soul; 

For  I  am  thy  servant. 

— Psalm  143:9-12. 

Two  parts  of  this  reading  seem  to  conflict ;  the  first  really 
safeguards  the  other.  Can  a  man  with  the  spirit  of  prayer^ 
asking  to  do  God's  will  because  God's  spirit  is  good,  go  on  tO' 
ask  that  his  enemies  be  cut  off  or  destroyed?  At  any  rate, 
the  difficulty  for  most  of  us  would  be  to  keep  the  true  spirit 
of  prayer  with  such  a  wish.  With  such  a  spirit,  taught  by 
our  Lord,  we  can  pray  for  our  enemies,  for  their  forgive- 
ness, their  correction,   rather  than   for  their  destrucrion. 

Twelfth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

O  Lord,  open  thou  my  lips; 
And  my  mouth  shall  show  forth  thy  praise. 
For  thou  delightest  not  in  sacrifice;  else  would  I  give  it: 
Thou  hast  no  pleasure  in  burnt-offering. 
The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit: 
A  broken   and  a   contrite   heart,   O    God,   thou   wilt   not 
despise. 

— Psalm  51: 15-17. 

Prayer  helps  to  get  moral  values  adjusted.  This  51st 
psalm  is  evidently  the  result  of  sorrow  over  some  great 
wrong  the  writer  has  done,  and  it  is  the  moral  evil  of  it 
that  is  uppermost  in  his  mind.  As  happens  with  every  man 
who  sees  a  sin  for  what  it  is,  he  knows  that  something  needs 
to  be  done  to  clear  it  out  of  the  way.  Waving  the  hand  and 
dismissing  it  never  works  in  serious  moods.  Easy  treatment 
of  wrong  does  not  get  the  social  order  forward.  Laying  the 
whole  matter  before  God  as  one  has  to  do  in  prayer  tends  to 
clear  the  issues  and  to  show  the  way  out.  It  makes  clear  to 
us  that  it  is  not  things  God  wants,  but  men  and  men  of  a 

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[XII-5]        PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

certain  sort.  Something  within  us  rises  to  protest  when  we 
let  any  thing  or  any  act  be  substituted  for  ourselves  in  our 
religious  lives.  If  prayer  is  anything  at  all,  it  is  the  contact 
of  our  spirits  with  God's  spirit  and  it  is  unthinkable  that 
things,  sacrifices  of  any  sort,  can  take  the  place  of  that  con- 
tact. 

What  is  a  broken  spirit  in  view  of  evils?  We  generally 
speak  regretfully  of  a  man  when  we  call  him  broken-spirited. 
The  saying  here  must  be  set  over  against  the  Bible  hints  of 
stubbornness  and  hardness  of  spirit.  Illustrate  it  in  your 
experience  of  a  college  student  who  has  disgraced  the  honor 
of  his  college  in  some  way  and  wants  to  come  back  into  good 
standing :  he  must  not  be  cowed  or  whipped  in  spirit ;  what 
would  a  broken  and  contrite  spirit  mean  in  such  a  case? 

Twelfth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

Judge  me,  O  God,  and  plead  my  cause  against  an  ungodly 

nation: 
Oh  deliver  me  from  the  deceitful  and  unjust  man. 
For  thou  art  the  God  of  my  strength;  why  hast  thou  cast 

me  off? 
Why   go    I   mourning  because   of  the   oppression   of  the 

enemy? 
Oh  send  out  thy  light  and  thy  truth;  let  them  lead  me: 
Let  them  bring  me  unto  thy  holy  hill, 
And  to  thy  tabernacles. 
Then  will  I  go  unto  the  altar  of  God, 
Unto   God  my  exceeding  joy; 

And  upon  the  harp  will  I  praise  thee,  O  God,  my  God. 
Why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul? 
And  why  art  thou  disquieted  within  me? 
Hope  thou  in  God;  for  I  shall  yet  praise  him, 
Who  is  the  help  of  my  countenance,  and  my  God. 

— Psalm   43. 

Prayer  puts  cheer  into  the  spirit  of  the  man  who  prays 
and  therein  it  has  large  social  value.  Depressed  men  do 
not  get  things  done.  A  saying  is  that  God  can  do  nothing 
with  a  discouraged  man,  but  fortunately  that  says  it  much  too 
strongly.  Only,  it  is  true  that  the  first  thing  needed  is  to 
cheer  up  a  discouraged  man.  Teachers  know  that  some- 
times a  student  gets  blue  over  a  course  without  any  good 
reason,  and  so  long  as  he  stays  blue  he  cannot  do  good  work 

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THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-6] 

in  it.  Leaders  of  community  work  find  that  helpers  who  ' 
think  nothing  is  coming  out  of  their  projects  soon  become 
ineffective.  We  have  already  noticed  that  this  little  43rd 
psalm  was  originally  part  of  the  42nd  psalm,  for  the  closing 
verses  occur  twice  in  that  psalm,  a  recurring  refrain  sug- 
gesting a  recurring  mood  of  depression  driven  away  by  recur- 
ring prayer  and  faith  in  God.  Many  good  men  have  had  that 
experience  and  there  was  proliably  never  a  bit  of  good  work 
done  on  a  college  campus  or  in  a  community  without  periods 
when  its  doers  felt  that  they  could  not  go  on.  There  is  a 
depression  that  settles  down  on  our  spirits  at  times  unac- 
countably. Sometimes  it  is  physical  and  can  be  dealt  with 
physically;  nerves  "play  out"  at  times  and  need  rest.  Some- 
times it  is  deeper  than  physical.  In  both  cases,  it  helps  to 
cheer  us  up  to  remember  the  interest  of  God  in  us  and  our 
enterprises. 

Twelfth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

Give  ear,  O  Shepherd  of  Israel, 

Thou  that  leadest  Joseph  like  a  flock; 

Thou  that  sittest  above  the  cherubim,  shine  forth. 

Before    Ephraim    and    Benjamin    and    Manasseh,    stir    up 

thy  might, 
And  come  to  save  us. 
Turn  us  again,  O  God; 
And  cause  thy  face  to  shine,  and  we  shall  be  saved. 

— Psalm  80: 1-3. 

This  whole  80th  psalm  is  a  cry  of  distress  because  of  some 
national  condition  which  cannot  now  be  determined.  Sev- 
eral times  it  suggests  that  the  cause  of  the  trouble  may  be 
in  some  bad  condition  within  the  nation  itself,  and  it  expresses 
a  sincere  readiness  to  be  corrected  if  that  is  the  case.  That 
is  always  the  honest  position  to  take.  In  a  moral  order,  it 
cannot  be  expected  that  evil  conditions  in  a  social  group 
shall  go  unnoticed.  Augustine  once  wrote :  "It  is  in  Thy 
order,  O  Lord,  that  all  irregularities  of  mind  should  carry 
their  own  punishment  along  with  them."  If  a  nation  is 
wrong,  it  may  be  expected  that  the  wrong  will  carry  its 
punishment  with  it.  Whenever  a  social  group  fails  to  ad- 
vance as  it  should,  or  if  it  is  undergoing  peculiar  difficulty, 
the  first  question  of  its  members  who  care  must  be  regard- 

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:[XII-7]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

*  ing  itself.  Is  it  worth  keeping  alive?  We  always  suspect 
the  man  whose  discharge  from  position  after  position  is 
always  someone  else's  fault.  Let  him  look  to  himself  first. 
What  shall  be  said  in  reply  to  a  student  who  declares  that 
no  teacher  in  the  school  likes  him  or  is  fair  to  him? 

Prayer  is  a  true  emergency  relief  under  such  conditions. 
It  forces  a  man  to  take  honest  stock  of  himself.  But  it 
also  drives  him  back  to  God  for  the  help  he  needs.  The 
thought  of  God  as  a  shepherd  occurs  several  times,  notably 
in  the  23rd  psalm,  and  it  carries  with  it  the  assurance  of 
his  really  doing  things  for  the  people  who  trust  him.  If 
we  do  not  think  he  will  do  things,  we  will  not  pray  very 
much.  The  value  of  prayer  as  a  spiritual  exercise  is  very 
great,  and  it  is  worth  while  for  that  alone,  but  few  men  are 
able  to  practice  it  with  any  earnestness  simply  on  that  basis. 

Twelfth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

Praise  waiteth  for  thee,  O   God,  in  Zion; 

And  unto  thee  shall  the  vow  be  performed. 

O  thou  that  hearest  prayer. 

Unto  thee  shall  all  flesh  come.   - 

Iniquities  prevail  against  me: 

As  for  our  transgressions,  thou  v^rilt  forgive  them. 

Blessed  is  the  man  whom  thou  choosest,  and  causest  to 

approach  unto  thee, 
That  he  may  dwell  in  thy  courts: 

We  shall  be  satisfied  with  the  goodness  of  .thy  house. 
Thy  holy  temple. 

By  terrible  things  thou  wilt  answer  us  in  righteousness, 
O  God  of  our  salvation. 

Thou  that  art  the  confidence  of  all  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
And  of  them  that  are  afar  off  upon  the  sea. 

— Psalm    65: 1-5. 

Prayer  ought  to  widen  the  social  horizon.  In  thought  of 
God  and  his  readiness  to  help,  we  think  more  easily  of  "all 
flesh,"  "all  the  ends  of  the  earth,"  "them  that  are  afar  off 
upon  the  sea."  There  are  personal  prayers  that  are  wholly 
legitimate,  but  not  if  they  exclude  other  men  from  our  desire 
for  blessing.  When  Jesus  said  that  he  prayed  not  for  the 
world  but  for  those  whom  God  had  given  him  out  of  the 
world  (John  17:9),  he  yet  prayed  that  they  might  be  left  in 
the  world    (John  17:15)   and  soon  revealed  why  he  wanted 

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THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-c] 

them  left — for  the  sake  of  their  mission  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth  (Acts  i:8).  An  old  believer  once  said 
that  while  she  liked  the  23rd  psalm,  she  liked  the  46th  better, 
because  it  was  plural  and  called  God  our  refuge  and  strength 
while  the  23rd  called  him  my  shepherd.  Is  there  anything  in 
that,  as  you  see  it?  The  conditions  on  which  any  man  finds 
help  from  God  are  open  to  all  men.  He  needs  to  be  for- 
given and  so  do  they;  he  trusts  God's  lovingkindness  and  so 
must  they.  All  that  makes  God  helpful  to  one  class  in  society 
makes  him  helpful  to  all  classes.  He  is  not  the  enemy  of 
"rich  or  poor,  ignorant  or  learned.  In  the  thought  of  him 
the  social  horizon  broadens  to  take  in  all  men. 


COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

We  are  not'concerned  in  this  study  with  the  philosophy  of 
prayer  nor  with  objections  to  it.  Students  of  the  subject 
who  are  troubled  over  such  phases  are  advised  to  go  over 
the  little  book  by  Dr.  Fosdick,  "The  Meaning  of  Prayer," 
and  the  one  by  Nolan  Rice  Best  called  "Beyond  the  Natural 
Order,"  in  which  the  whole  matter  is  briefly  treated.  A 
more  exhaustive  treatment  can  be  found  in  James  Hastings' 
larger  volume  on  Prayer.  The  writers  of  the  psalms  are 
not  bothered  about  such  matters.  Like  all  vigorous  religious 
people,  they  practiced  prayer  steadily  in  spite  of  any  diffi- 
culties that  might  be  in  the  way.  The  result  is  that  they  have 
produced  a  series  of  psalms  which  are  almost  all  prayers. 
"If  prayer  be  the  eye  of  the  heart  turned  toward  God,  then 
each  psalm  is  a  prayer."  All  of  them  are  uttered  with  a 
vivid  sense  of  the  presence  and  attention  of  God.  Asleep 
or  awake,  they  were  still  with  God  (139:18).  "The  psalter 
has  been  in  the  truest  sense  the  praycrbook  both  of  Jews 
and  Christians.  It  is,  in  itself,  to  a  very  great  extent  the  con- 
verse of  the  soul  with  God.  It  teaches  us  what  we  are  to 
do  and  to  be  through  prayer."  (Perowne,  "The  Psalms," 
vol.  I,  p.  18.)  Luther  counted  this  the  great  service  of  the 
psalms,  that  they  tell  us  of  the  words  which  the  saints  used 
and  may  still  use  in  praying  to  God.  Most  books  tell  of  the 
works  of  good  men ;  this  tells  of  their  words. 

Our  interest  at  this  time  is  with  the  place  of  prayer  in 
the  social  order,  what  it  does  there,  what  its  field  is.     Two 

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IXII-c]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

facts  stand  out  in  the  psalms  at  this  point.  One  is  that  the 
writers  felt  themselves  always  in  the  presence  of  God ;  the 
other  that  they  felt  themselves  always  in  some  sort  of  a 
social  group.  Sometimes  the  group  was  adverse  and  they 
realized  the  presence  of  God  protectively;  sometimes  it  was 
favorable  and  they  realized  his  presence  encouragingly.  But 
they  seem  never  to  be  conscious  of  the  group  without  a  sense 
of  God  and  never  to  think  of  God  without  some  sense  of 
the  social  group.  There  is  nothing  morbid  about  it,  no 
sense  of  strain  in  keeping  aware  of  God  or  of  men.  It  is 
simply  healthy  human  life  expressing  itself  in  its  outward' 
and  its  upward  connections  at  the  same  time.  Prayer  was 
merely  a  natural  act  of  counting  God  in  when  they  were 
thinking  about  life.  Even  in  a  personal  psalm  like  the 
familiar  23rd,  which  speaks  of  the  Lord  as  "my"  shepherd, 
the  social  group  appears  in  the  very  figure  involved,  A 
shepherd  always  has  a  flock,  not  a  single  slteep.  The  ad- 
verse group  appears  in  the  thought  of  a  table  spread  in  the 
midst  of  his  enemies.  There  is  no  psalm  without  this  double 
consciousness  of  God  and  the  social  group  or  the  whole 
social  order.  Our  daily  readings  have  suggested  several 
.social  values  that  such  an  attitude  toward  life  would  have. 


One  element  of  its  force  would  be  in  its  steadying  one's 
•  own  life.  The  most  familiar  verse  about  prayer  in  the 
whole  book  is  the  one  that  sa3^s,  "If  I  regard  iniquity  in  my 
"heart,  the  Lord  will  not  hear"  (66:18),  which  emphasizes 
this  value.  Before  a  man  can  feel  any  power  in  prayer  he 
must  come  wifh  an  open  heart,  himself  thoroughly  square 
with  God.  As  they  say  in  the  law  courts,  he  must  come  with 
■clean  hands  when  he  accuses  any  other  man  of  having  stained 
hands.  Meredith,  in  "Beauchamp's  Career,"  makes  Dr. 
Shrapnel  speak  of  the  fact  that  many  who  pray  for  no  gift 
yet 

"have  cleansing  in  prayer, 
And    free   from  impurities   towerlike   stand," 

If  a  man  is  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  he  need 
not  be  perfect,  but  he  must  be  sincere,  one  who  has  not  lifted 

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THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-c] 

lip  his  soul  unto  emptiness  nor  sworn  deceitfully  (24:4). 
Goethe  tells  in  Faust  of  the  unrest  of  Margaret  when 
Mephistopheles  was  near.  She  did  not  know  who  he  was, 
but  something  in  her  pure  soul  detected  evil  and  she  told 
Faust  that  his  presence  chilled  her  blood.  She  brings  her 
suspicion  to  its  climax  in  declaring : 

"Besides,  when  he  is  near,  I  ne'er  could  pray." 
Shakespeare  uses  the  same  idea  when  he  tells  of  Macbeth's 
return  from  the  murder  of  Duncan,  telling  Lady  Macbeth 
of  the  two  servants  who  in  their  sleep  had  murmured  "God 
bless  us !"  and  he  could  not  say  Amen.  She  bids  him  not 
think  of  it.     He  cannot  dismiss  it : 

"But   wherefore   could   not   I   pronounce,    amen? 
I  had  most  need  of  blessing  and  amen 
Stuck   in   my   throat." 

/ 

And  the  same  thought  appears  in  the  familiar  soliloquy  of 
the  murderous  king  in  Hamlet  who  feels  a  curse  upon  him 
and  knows  he  cannot  truly  repent  his  sin  and  yet  retain  the 
profits  of  it : 

"Pray   can    I    not, 
Though  inclination  be  as  sharp  as  will; 
My  stronger  guilt  defeats  my  strong  intent." 

Keeping  ourselves  able  to  pray  keeps  us  also  ready  for  the 
tasks  of  the  social  order,  keeps  our  own  lives  steadied  and 
braced  for  service. 

That  same  steadying  influence  of  prayer  appears  in  the  de- 
mand praying  makes  that  our  spirit  be  kept  right  when  we  face 
those  who  oppose  us.  It  is  noticeable  that  in  war  times,  when 
national  enemies  are  much  in  mind,  sermons  or  orations  are 
always  more  vitriolic  than  prayers.  With  our  fellowmen 
we  can  be  denunciatory  of  other  people,  and  it  is  .possible 
to  get  so  assured  of  the  righteousness  of  our  cause  that  we 
can  pray  for  its  victory.  But  when  we  approach  God  in 
prayer,  denunciations  are  not  so  easy,  and,  specially  under 
the  influence  of  our  Christian  thinking,  we  fall  to  praying 
for  the  success  of  our  cause  for  the  sake  of  our  enemies 
as  well  as  for  our  own  sakes.  In  the  European  war  men 
have  talked  of  hating  each  other,  but  when  they  have  prayed, 
they  have  not  been  so  belligerent ;  or  if  they  have,  all  men 

165 


[XII-c]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

who  looked  on  knew  that  they  had  missed  the  deepest  note 
of  prayer.  It  is  here  we  find  the  largest  difficulty  with  the 
psalms  of  imprecation  or  cursing;  at  some  points  they  are 
not  in  our  Christian  spirit ;  in  so  far  as  they  call  for  per- 
sonal vengeance  on  evil  doers  because  of  personal  injuries, 
they  are  not  Christian  at  all.  But  it  is  something  to  notice 
that  prayer  turns  the  enemy  over  to  God  and  does  not  sug- 
gest the  least  desire  to  take  the  vengeance  one's  self.  In  the 
saddest  psalms  is  the  assurance  that  if  these  enemies  were 
in  any  need,  the  injured  one  would  be  swift  to  help    (141: 

5;  35:13,  14). 

Great  social  movements  do  not  prosper  under  leadership 
of  men  who  grow  bitter  and  denunciatory  even  when  they 
feel  deeply.  Keeping  God  in  mind,  his  patience  which  out- 
lasts our  imagination,  his  blessing  even  on  men  who  are 
unworthy,  so  that  sun  and  rain  come  to  just  and  unjust  alike, 
(Matt.  5:45),  the  sure  outcome  of  his  plans  which  no  evil 
of  men  can  finally  defeat,  so  that  their  best  efforts  are  only 
amusing  (2:4) — all  this  will  steady  the  life  of  any  m.an  who 
wants  to  take  his  place  helpfully  in  the  social  order.  Tenny- 
son says  that  after  the  heroic  self-sacrifice  of  Enoch  Arden:. 

"He  was  not  all  unhappy.    His  resolve 
Upbore  him,  and  firm  faith,  and  evermore 
Prayer  from  a  living  source  within  the  will, 
And  beating  up  thro'  all  the  bitter  world, 
Like  fountains  of  sweet  waters  in  the  sea, 
Kept  him  a  living  soul." 

The  task  of  helping  in  the  social  order  is  not  easy;  it  has  its 
bitter  taste  as  well  as  its  inspiring  sweetness.  If  men  are  to 
take  their  places  without  wavering  and  weakening,  they  must 
keep  in  touch  with  the  power  of  God. 


II   • 

Another  element  of  social  value  in  prayer  is  its  broadening 
of  one's  horizon.  The  God  who  hears  praj'er  is  one  to  whom 
"all  flesh"  can  come  (65:2).  There  have  been  good  men 
who  kept  narrow  horizons  in  their  thinking,  but  it  has  been 
in  spite  of  their  prayer.  They  have  not  prayed  much  or 
else   they  have  not  prayed   with   understanding.     The  great 

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THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-c] 

advance  movements,  the  great  achievements,  have  come  with 
that  widening  of  horizon  which  usually  grows  out  of 
renewed  assurance  of  God.  But  the  widening  life,  little  as 
it  may  have  to  do  with  great  movements,  has  grown  by  the 
same  assurance.  Remember  again  the  word  of  Browning  in 
"Saul,"  that  David  did  not  come  to  the  test  of  Saul's  need 
unprepared,  for  though  he  had  been  only  a  shepherd  lad, 
he  had  tried  to  think  big  thoughts  and  to  push  back  his 
horizon  constantly  even  in  his  narrow  field.  So,  when  the 
demand  came,  there  came  with  it  great  thoughts. 

Most  of  our  problems  are  helped  by  being  lifted  into  larger 
connections.  Social  cures  are  generally  conceived  on  too 
narrow  a  basis.  We  tend  to  cure  symptoms  instead  of  causes 
— as  though  on  a  campus  a  particular  misdeed  were  magnified 
to  such  dimensions  that  we  should  not  try  to  find  out  the 
spirit  that  might  be  pervading  the  whole  college  and  finding 
expression  in  the  one  deed.  Cheating  in  examination  is  not 
the  bad  thing,  mean  as  it  is ;  far  worse  is  the  spirit  of  a 
student  body  that  does  not  care  about  such  things,  whose 
nerve  of  integrity  is  cut  or  deadened.  There  is  no  cure  for 
cheating  while  that  spirit  rules. 

Men  who  pray  widely  and  honestly  cannot  long  take  nar- 
row views  of  evil,  nor  think  it  makes  no  difference.  To  a 
man  who  knows  this  to  be  a  world  from  which  God  can  be 
reached,  the  presence  of  evils  here  is  monstrous.  They  carry 
with  them  widespread  results  to  which  he  cannot  be  indif- 
ferent. And  just  thinking  them  out  in  the  presence  of  God 
helps  to  show  the  way  of  correction.  A  student  once  brought 
a  serious  difficulty  of  life  to  an  instructor  of  whose  interest 
he  was  sure  and  whose  question?  as  the  story  proceeded 
gave  the  problem  definite  outlines.  When  the  tale  was  done, 
the  instructor  said,  "It  is  a  big  question,  my  dear  fellow, 
and  I  fear  I  cannot  help  you  much  with  it."  "Help  me  1" 
the  other  exclaimed,  "why,  you've  helped  me  immensely 
already;  just  telling  you  has  made  it  seem  clearer  and  I 
think  I  see  myself  what  I  ought  to  do."  Many  a  man  could 
testify  that  just  telling  a  situation  over  in  the  presence  of 
God  has  seemed  to  clear  it  up.  Nothing  has  happened,  yet 
his  prayer,  for  guidance  has  been  answered  and  duty  has 
grown  clear.  You  'cannot  miss  that  tone  in  these  psalms. 
They  are  the  cries  of  perplexed  men,  but  almost  without 
exception  before  the  cry  is  ended  it  has  turned  into  praise 

167 


[XII-c]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

and  assurance  of  God's  hand  in  the  troublesome  matter. 
Even  when  the  mood  of  depression  recurs,  as  in  Psalms 
42  and  43,  the  assurance  recurs  also. 

Of  immense  value  also  is  this  widening  of  horizon  in  its 
taking  away  cheap  class  spirit  from  our  thinking.  Animos- 
ities between  social  groups  are  hurtful  to  the  whole  social 
order.  Rich  and  poor,  laborer  and  capitalist,  American  and 
foreigner,  aristocrat  and  plebeian,  will  do  for  convenient 
terms  of  speech ;  they  will  kill  any  prayer.  When  we 
approach  a  great  God  we  must  learn  to  think  wide  thoughts. 
The  more  destructive  forms  of  socialism  on  the  one  side  and 
of  capitalism  on  the  other  are  contemptuous  of  religion. 
They  must  be  if  they  think  of  their  own  interests  in  terms  of 
the   overthrow  of   other  people. 


Ill 

Another  element  of  social  value  in  prayer  is  in  its  maintain- 
ing courage  for  largest  attempts.  There  is  always  danger 
in  our  saying  so  much  about  the  value  of  little  things  in 
life  and  of  small  services  of  helpfulness  that  we  overlook 
the  necessity  for  many  big  things  that  must  be  attempted  by 
men  who  have  the  courage  for  them.  There  is  a  cheap  little 
song  that  says  "the  world  is  dying  for  a  little  bit  of  love." 
That  is  more  nearly  what  the  world  is  dying  of,  than  for. 
What  it  really  needs  is  a  tremendous  deal  of  love,  the  outgo 
of  hearts  that  know  no  limit  to  their  sacrifice.  If  small 
things  are  all  we  can  do,  then  they  are  the  big  things  of  life 
for  us.  But  the  big  things  are  not  less  needed,  and  our  lives 
get  their  main  strength  from  being  linked  up  to  big  attempts 
that  are  being  made  for  the  good  of  men.  We  could  make 
those  attempts  in  a  spirit  of  dogged  devotion  to  duty,  saying 
to  ourselves  that  nothing  can  come  of  them,  of  course,  but 
that  we  can  die  trying.  And  certainly  it  is  better  to  fail 
in  the  effort  to  do  something  thoroughly  zvorth  "while  than 
to  succeed  in  doing  a  thing  that  is  not  worth  while  anyway. 
But  we  need  not  make  any  such  choice. 

Prayer  puts  courage  into  a  man.  When  he  cries  to  God, 
He  encourages  him  with  strength  in  his  soul  (138:3).  When 
we  wonder  that  God  does  not  correct  social  evils,  we  are 
forgetting  that  he  does  much  better  by  the   social  order  in 

168 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PRAYER  [XII-c] 

making  a  group  of  men  brave  enough  and  strong  enough 
to  face  and  deal  with  an  evil  than  in  removing  it  by  a  mir- 
acle. When  we  ask  the  Lord  to  provide,  his  answer  often  is, 
"I  have  provided,  and  you  are  the  provision !"  In  a  sound 
social  order  men  are  more  important  than  institutions,  for 
they  can  make  any  kind  of  institutions  if  they  are  right 
themselves.  The  only  reason  great  correctiy^e  measures  do 
not  start  earlier  is  that  the  man  big  enough  and  brave  enough 
and  sure  enough  of  God  does  not  appear.^  When  he  comes, 
things  move.  So  much  of  Carlyle's  philosophy  of  history 
is  right. 

These  psalmists  had  no  notion  that  anything  is  too  hard 
for  God  or  that  any  evil  thing  has  to  be  put  up  with  (34:  16; 
37:1,  2;  76:10).  They  knew  how  deeply  evil  is  rooted  in 
human  nature  (51:5),  but  it  was  no  impossible  thing  in  their 
eyes  for  God  to  change  human  nature  where  it  had  gone 
wrong  (51:7;  139:23,  24).  Social  evils  always  root  some- 
where in  human  nature  and  there  are  men  who  lie  down  as 
soon  as  they  see  that  fact,  declaring  that  they  cannot  then 
be  corrected.  Men  always  have  drunk,  always  have  been 
impure,  always  have  gambled ;  therefore  they  always  will 
do  so.  And  to  make  that  a  sound  syllogism  we  have  to  put  in 
another  premise  to  the  effect  that  what  always  has  been 
always  must  be.  Men  who  know  God  well  enough  to  trust 
him  challenge  tljat  premise  on  the  instant.  There  is  no  evil 
of  any  sort  in  the  social  order  that  is  to  be  accepted  as  a 
finality  to  which  the  order  must  regretfully  adjust  itself. 
All  evils  are  doomed  in  the  appearance  of  a  group  of  men 
with  courage  enough  to  make  big  attempts  for  God  and  men. 

Prayer  demands  that  we  be  worthy  of  it  ourselves.  The 
Rabbis  said  that  without  mention  of  the  kingdom  "a.  prayer 
is  not  a  prayer."  All  real  prayer  needs  a  background  of 
a  great  purpose.  Petty  praying  gets  to  be  mere  talk  before 
long.  When  Theodore  Lee  was  asked  about  his  decision 
for  the  mission  field,  he  said  that  he  could  not  very  well  fail 
to  put  his  life  to  some  large  uses  when  at  the  family  altar 
at  home  his  father  always  prayed  for  the  kingdom  of'  Christ 
and  its  extension.  An  atmosphere  was  formed  in  which 
petty  plans  were  impossible.  As  a  Christian  man,  are  you 
expecting  great  things  for  your  communit}^  the  correction  of 
its  evils,  the  cure  of  its  plague  spots,  or  have  you  learned  the 
sad  lingo  about  traditions  which  it  is  no  use  to  try  to  correct? 

169 


[XII-c]         PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

That  is,  are  you  a  man  sure  enough  of  God  to  dare  big  things 
for  him,  or  are  you  afraid  to  be  daring  in  his  interest? 


IV 

Prayer  has  a  social  value  also  in  the  actual  achievements 
which  it  makeS>  possible.  This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into 
the  argument  about  the  effectiveness  of  prayer  in  gaining 
results.  The  books  mentioned  at  the  opening  of  the  study 
present  it  fully.  Enough  now  to  say  that  if  men  do  not 
believe  that  prayer  is  worth  while  in  making  some  things 
possible  that  would  not  be  possible  without  it,  they  will  not 
long  pray  with  any  earnestness.  They  do  not  dictate  the 
time  of  answer,  for  there  is  an  acceptable  time  which  may 
be  trusted  to  God's  lovingkindness  (69:13),  but  they  believe 
that  their  pra3^er  does  rise  to  God  as  an  incense,  finding  favor 
there  (141:2),  and  bringing  things  to  pass.  It  introduces 
into  the  situation  further  spiritual  forces,  which  violate 
no  natural  forces,  but  direct  their  action  so  that  they  accom- 
plish what  otherwise  they  would  not  do.  This  is  no  more 
mysterious  to  a  man  who  believes  in  a  personal  God  than 
the  operation  of  any  request  he  makes  of  a  fellow  man  to  do 
something  in  the  natural  order  whereby  results  come  which 
would  not  have  occurred  but  for  that  request  and  that  service. 
Prayer  engages  these  highest  spiritual  forces;  It  is  not  fool- 
ish but  very  wise,  for  a  group  of  men  who  want  something 
accomplished  on  a  campus  or  in  a  community  to  band  them- 
selves together  in  prayer  for  it.  Results  are  achieved  by  it 
which  could  not  come  without  it.  That  is  part  of  the  social 
power  of  prayer. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

The  pros  and  cons  of  group  prayer  meetings,  as  of  col- 
lege classes,  fraternities,  bands, — their  value  to  the  group 
itself?  Their  value  to  the  whole  order  of  which  the  group  is 
part?     How  can  such  meetings  be  kept  thoroughly  sincere? 

Sometimes  it  is  suggested  that  the  midweek  meeting  of  the 
church  should  be  abandoned.  Under  what  conditions  can 
this  be  approved?     What  losses  might  be  expected? 

170 


CHAPTER  XIII 

The  Forecast  of  a  Future 
-    Social  Order 

There  is  no  mistaking  the  forward  look  of  the  psalms. 
Open  your  Bible  to  any  page  of  these  songs  and  count  the 
future  tenses  of  the  verbs.  Sometimes  the  expectation  is  per- 
sonal, as  in  the  23rd  and  other  psalms.  Generally  it  is 
strongly  social.  It  took  in  the  nation,  or  all  those  that  fear 
Jehovah  or  all  the  righteous.  Something  better  is  always 
before  these  writers.  We  speak  of  that  hope  as  Messianic, 
meaning  by  it  not  simply  that  an  anointed  leader  and  king 
was  to  come,  but  that  with  him  a  new  and  corrected  social 
order  was  to  come  also.  Dr.  Briggs  in  his  book  on  Mes- 
sianic Prophecy  refers  to  sixty-four  of  the  psalms  as  having 
one  or  more  references  to  the  Messiah  and  the  new  order 
which  he  was  to  inaugurate. 

DAILY  READINGS 

Thirteenth  Week,  First  Day 

It  is  easy  enough  to  be  hopeful  for  a  good  social  order  in 
the  future  if  you  do  not  let  yourself  think  of  the  forces 
that  are  against  it.  One  large  body  of  people  today  are 
trying  to  keep  cheerful  by  refusing  to  let  their  minds  dwell 
on  disturbing  facts.  The  working  motto  of  other  people  is, 
"Forget  it!"  Within  limits  such  policies  are  feasible.  But 
they  are  not  very  courageous,  and  they  leave  one  wilted 
when  the  adverse  facts  finally  break,  through  and  demand 
to  be  noticed.  The  truth  is  that  there  are  no  easy  paths  to  a 
better  future.  The  new  social  order  "which  eager  hearts 
expect"  has  plenty  of  forces  operating  against  it  in  the  order 
that  now  obtains. 

171 


tXin-2]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Why  do  the  nations  rage, 

And  the  peoples  meditate  a  vain  thing? 

The  kings  of  the  earth  set  themselves, 

And   the   rulers   take   counsel   together, 

Against  Jehovah,  and  against  his  anointed,  saying. 

Let  us  break  their  bonds  asunder. 

And  cast  away  their  cords  from  us. 

He  that  sitteth  in  the  heavens  will  laugh: 

The  Lord  will  have  them  in  derision. 

Then  will  he  speak  unto  them  in  his  wrath. 

And  vex  them  in  his  sore  displeasure: 

Yet  I  have  set  my  king 

Upon  my  holy  hill  of  Zion.  — Psalm  2 :  1-6. 

No  one  ever  tried  to  improve  conditions  anywhere  without 
finding  plenty  of  people  to  whom  present  conditions  are 
wholly  satisfying.  The  clearing  out  of  tenement  slums  is 
never  easy  because  they  are  productive  of  revenue  on  the 
one  hand  and  are  homelike  to  the  inhabitants  on  the  other. 
The  new  proposals  always  seem  like  new  bondage  which  must 
be  resisted.  "Reformers  always  kill  business"  is  a  truism 
with  those  who  oppose  them.  But  the- movement  goes  on  for 
all  that.  Opposition  is  petty  at  its  strongest.  It  may  over- 
come our  plans  and  defeat  our  programs,  but  it  cannot  stop 
the  moral  forces  of  the  universe  and  they  are  on  the  side 
of  the  movement  for  a  better  social  order. 

Thirteenth  Week,  Second  Day 

I  will  tell  of  the  decree: 

Jehovah  said  unto  me,  Thou  art  my  son; 

This  day  have  I  begotten  thee. 

Ask   of  me,   and   I   will   give   thee   the   nations   for  thine 

inheritance, 
And  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  thy  possession. 
Thou  shalt  break  them  with  a  rod  of  iron; 
Thou  shalt  dash  them  in  pieces  like  a  potter's  vessel. 
Now  therefore  be  wise,  O  ye  kings: 
Be  instructed,  ye  judges  of  the  earth. 
Serve  Jehovah  with  fear. 
And  rejoice  with  trembling. 

Kiss  the  son,  lest  he  be  angry,  and  ye  perish  in  the  way, 
For  his  wrath  will  soon  be  kindled. 
Blessed  are  all  they  that  take  refuge  in  him. 

— Psalm  2:  7-12. 

172 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-3] 

Ruin  or  compliance  with  the  advancing  order — that  may 
seem  a  harsh  alternative,  but  it  is  the  natural,  inevitable  one. 
It  is  in  the  moral  order  only  the  familiar  law  of  life  in  the 
natural  order.  Animals  must  find  some  way  of  adjusting 
themselves  to  a  changed  environment  or  perish.  Institu- 
tions must  continue  to  serve  the  need  of  men  under  their 
changed  conditions  or  cease  to  be.  In  recent  years  American 
colleges  have  made  many  changes  in  the  effort  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  needs  of  changed  social  demands.  Society 
cannot  allow  itself  to  be  forever  encumbered  with  dead 
material  even  though  it  was  once  alive.  The  coming  Messiah 
spoken  of  in  the  2nd  psalm  is  to  be  God's  king,  whose  reign 
will  have  no  limit.  The  nations  and  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  earth  belong  to  him.  As  his  reign  extends,  it  makes  the 
new  conditions  which  all  nations  must  meet  if  they  are  to 
continue.  It  is  not  the  hope  or  wish  of  the  writer  of  this 
psalm,  nor  of  any  man  who  loves  the  coming  kingdom,  that 
any  should  perish.  He  wants  all  kings,  judges,  leaders  of 
the  earth,  to  learn  the  new  order  and  adjust  themselves  to 
it.  The  expression,  "kiss  the  son,"  only  means  to  do  homage, 
to  recognize  the  right  of  the  son  as  king  on  the  throne.  And 
the  last  line  of  the  psalm  takes  away  the  sting  of  the  seem- 
ingly harsh  words  that  go  before.  The  only  refuge  from 
God  is  in  God.  We  flee  from  him  by  fleeing  to  him.  The 
kingdoms  of  the  world  are  not  marked  for  destruction  but 
for  subjection.     Our  hearts  are  marked  in  the  same  way. 

Thirteenth  Week,  Third  Day 

The  coming  social  order,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth, 
is  not  to  come  as  an  arbitrary,  forced  victory.  It  will  come 
by  the  power  of  God  and  through  the  rule  of  Christ,  it  is 
true ;  but  its  method  is  the  service  of  a  voluntary  people  who 
offer  themselves  willingly  in  a  day  when  they  know  God's 
power. 

Jehovah  saith  unto  my  lord,  Sit  thou  at  my  right  hand, 

Until   I  make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool. 

Jehovah  will  send  forth  the  rod  of  thy  strength  out  o£ 

Zion: 
Rule  thou  in  the  midst  of  thine  enemies. 
Thy  people  offer  themselves  willingly 
In  the  day  of  thy  power,  in  holy  array: 

173 


IXIII-4]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Out  of  the  womb  of  the  morning 
Thou  hast  the  dew  of  thy  youth. 

— Psalm  no:  1-3. 

The  time  comes  in  national  history  when  the  draft  must 
he  used  to  get  men  for  the  emergent  demands  of  a  war. 
Even  then  it  is  hoped  by  all  thoughtful  statesmen  that  the 
drafted  men  will  respond  willingly  when  their  turn  comes. 
A  dragging  soldiery  is  defeated  before  it  begins  the  fight. 
In  social  warfare  it  is  peculiarly  true  that  only  willing  people 
who  offer  themselves  can  render  the  best  service.  When  they 
are  salaried,  as  many  social  workers  must  be,  it  is  never 
like  day  laborers  who  watch  the  clock.  Their  salaries  are 
not  to  reward  them  for  their  work ;  th^ey  are  only  to  enable 
them  to  live  while  they  work.  Ministers,  teachers,  social  serv- 
ice workers,  and  all  the  group  whose  special  business  it  is  to 
advance  the  forces  of  the  new  social  order,  are  on  the  same 
basis  of  return.  They  know  no  hours  of  labor,  nor  limita- 
tion of  responsibility.  If  they  should  be  found  balancing 
work  against  pay,  they  would  be  counted  failures  at  once. 

The  new  social  order  calls  for  the  gift  of  increasing  num- 
bers of  selves  not  for  service  in  the  distinctive  group  alone, 
but  even  more  for  the  ordinary,  every-day  life  of  all  men  who 
have  the  forward  look.  There  is  no  right  mode  of  living 
which  is  not  also  a  call  to  service.  The  better  order  does 
not  advance  without  enemies,  but  in  the  midst  of  them,  and 
not  by  sweeping  them  away,  but  by  subduing  them  to  the 
new  order.  And  the  advance  of  the  forces  of  that  order  is 
not  chaotic,  but  in  "array,"  in  order  and  organization. 
Merely  good  spirit,  willingness  to  help,  will  not  take  the 
place  of  reason  and  the  cooperation  of  forces. 

Thirteenth  Week,  Fourth  Day 

In  his  days  shall  the  righteous  flourish, 

And  abundance  of  peace,  till  the  moon  be  no  more.    .    .    . 

Yea,  all  kings  shall  fall  down  before  him; 

All  nations  shall  serve  him. 

For  he  will  deliver  the  needy  when  he  crieth, 

And  the  poor,  that  hath  no  helper. 

He  will  have  pity  on  the  poor  and  needy. 

And  the  souls  of  the  needy  he  will  save. 

— Psalm  72:7,  11-13. 

174 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-s] 

By  all  accounts  this  is  a  psalm  of  the  coming  Messiah.  No 
doubt  it  was  first  applied  to  the  king  then  reigning  or  com- 
ing into  power  on  the  Jerusalem  throne  of  David,  but  its 
hopes  overstate  the  possibility  of  that  king  or  of  any.  other 
who  ever  sat  on  that  throne.  It  may  be  a  prayer  that  all  these 
things  may  come  to  be  true  of  the  king,  but  even  then  it  is 
prayer  that  works  on  to  an  expectation.  Only  in  a  new  social 
order,  under  the  reign  of  a  King  greater  than  any  man, 
could  the  expectation  of  the  psalm  be  fulfilled.  And  it  is  zuell 
to  notice  that  the  new  social  order  is  to  be  fundamentally 
moral:  righteousness  is  to  flourish  and  peace  in  abundance 
on  that  basis.  Can  there  be  any  effective  arrangement  for 
peace  until  that  basis  is  established f 

The  social  order  that  makes  provision  for  unfairness  must 
some  day  give  way  to  one  that  refuses  to  do  so.  Christ's 
claim  to  world  mastery  is  not  arbitrary,  but  rests  on  the 
ground  of  the. social  order  which  he  proposes.  In  that  order, 
kings  and  all  that  upper  level  of  authoritative  folk  whom 
every  order  has,  will  realize  that  they  are  themselves  under 
a  higher  power  and  will  wield  their  power  as  subjects. 
Nations  will  serve  each  other  because  they  serve  a  common 
Lord,  by  an  application  of  that  spiritual  mathematics  wherein 
two  men  serving  the  same  Lord  serve  each  other.  And  in 
that  order,  the  under  levels  have  their  chance.  The  poor 
and  the  need}^  count  in  it  and  are  helped  through  it.  The 
new  social  order  will  be  for  all  and  all  will  be  for  it.  Are 
you  helping  to  bring  this  kind  of  social  order? 

Thirteenth  Week,  Fifth  Day 

All  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  remember  and  turn  untO' 

Jehovah; 
And  all  the  kindreds  of  the  nations  shall  worship  before 

thee. 
For  the  kingdom  is  Jehovah's; 
And  he  is  the  ruler  over  the  nations. 
All  the  fat  ones  of  the  earth  shall  eat  and  worship: 
All  they  that  go  down  to  the  dust  shall  bow  before  him, 
Even  he  that  cannot  keep  his  soul  alive. 
A  seed  shall  serve  him; 

It  shall  be  told  of  the  Lord  unto  the  next  generation. 
They  shall  come  and  shall  declare  his  righteousness 
Unto  a  people  that  shall  be  born,  that  he  hath  done  it. 

— Psalm  22:27-31. 

175 


[XIII-6]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

If  you  did  not  know  it,  you  would  never  guess  that  this 
triumphant  forecast  of  coming  world  unity  and  victory  is 
taken  from  the  psalm  whose  opening  words  Jesus  quoted  on 
.  the  cross  in  the  hour  of  his  deepest  agony :  "Aly  God,  my 
God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me?"  (22:1;  Matt.  27:46). 
That  very  fact  shows  how  possible  it  is  under  present  press- 
ing trouble  to  get  a  clear  assurance  of  coming  victory  for  the 
forces  of  righteousness.  If,  as  some  think,  our  Lord  went 
on  through  the  psalm  in  his  own  mind  on  the  cross,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  new  strength  would  come  to  him  in  seeing 
that  this  distress  of  his  would  be  a  factor,  actually  the  larg- 
est factor,  in  bringing  the  better  day.  Personal  distresses 
or  the  setback  of  good  projects  sometimes  make  us  wonder 
if  the  kingdom  is  advancing.  But  they  do  not  dethrone  God 
nor  destroy  the  seed  that  still  serves  him,  out  of  whom  will 
grow  the  new  social  order  in  which  he  will  be  the  ruler  of 
all. 

Looking  back  over  history  is  one  of  the  surest  cures  erf 
pessimism.  No  generation  is  a  good  judge  of  its  own  prog- 
ress. Great  movements  are  sometimes  like  glaciers  that 
creep  so  slowly  that  the  advance  can  hardly  be  measured  by 
the  generation.  Then  again  they  will  be  like  the  liquid  in  a 
test  tube  that  crystallizes  quickly.  If  we  live  in  a  rapidly 
moving  period,  it  is  not  so  difficult  to  keep  encouraged. 
But  in  the  slow  periods  history  supplies  reassurance  to  men 
of  hope.  Apply  that  to  generations  of  students.  Is  it  cer- 
tain that  those  that  do  not  seem  to  introduce  any  new  move- 
ments have  been  ineffective  in  the  history  of  the  college ;  and 
are  the  biggest  results  always  the  outcome  of  slow  processes? 

Thirteenth  Week,  Sixth  Day 

When  our  sons  shall  be  as  plants  grown  up  in  their  youth, 
And  our  daughters  as  cornerstones  hewn  after  the  fashion 

of  a  palace; 
When  our  garners  are  full,  affording  all  manner  of  store, 
And  our  sheep  bring  forth  thousands  and  ten  thousands 

in  our  fields; 
When  our  oxen  are  well  laden; 

When  there  is  no  breaking  in,  and  no  going  forth. 
And  no  outcry  in  our  streets: 
Happy  is  the  people  that  is  in  such  a  case; 
Yea,  happy  is  the  people  whose  God  is  Jehovah. 

— Psalm  144:12-15. 

176 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-7] 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  Hebrew  idea  of  a  good  time 
yet  to  come  or  of  a  social  order  yet  to  be  reaHzed,  is  too 
physical,  too  temporal,  makes  too  much  of  worldly  comforts 
and  prosperit3\  Perhaps  so.  But  a  social  order  which  does 
not  make  much  of  these  things  will  never  be  worth  forming 
in  this  world.  Contempt  for  them  is  sheer  pretense.  If  we 
do  not  prefer  good  clothing  and  food  and  an  adequate  supply 
of  both,  we  ought  to.  Bloated  wealth,  foolish  extravagance, 
silly  outlay,  we  ought  to  despise.  But  if  we  count  this  world 
God's  world  and  look  on  its  evil  as  out  of  place,  sin  as  an 
interloper  which  ought  to  be  put  out,  terribly  real  as  it  still  is ; 
if  we  follow  Jesus  in  his  joy  in  the  lilies  and  the  birds  as 
evidences  of  a  Father's  care ;  if  we  feel  that  in  a  world  so 
rich  with  the  things  that  human  life  needs  it  is  a  shame  that 
human  lives  should  be  impoverished — we  will  not  refuse  our 
interest  to  any  phase  of  social  betterment  which  looks  toward 
temporal  improvement. 

It  is  a  wise  prayer  in  Prov.  30 : 8,  9,  "Give  me  neither 
poverty  nor  riches,"  not  poverty  lest  one  grow  bitter  and  dis- 
honest with  it,  nor  riches  lest  one  grov/  self-satisfied  and 
forget  God.  In  a  sound  social  order  it  is  necessary  that  all 
•have  enough ;  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  that  anybody  have 
too  much.  Crops  and  manufactures  have  a  real  religious 
interest,  not  because  they  are  final  indexes  of  social  sound- 
ness, but  because  without  them  the  social  order  cannot  be 
sound.  The  duty  of  men  who  take  a  large  view  of  the  com- 
ing order  is  to  see  that  temporal  things  do  not  get  into  first 
place.  The  kingdom  itself  must  have  that  place,  with  right- 
eousness;   after  that,   all  things   can  be  added  to   us    (Matt. 

Thirteenth  Week,  Seventh  Day 

For  Jehovah  hath  chosen  Zion;  • 

He  hath  desired  it  for  his  habitation. 

This  is  my  resting-place  for  ever: 

Here  will  I  dwell;  for  I  have  desired  it. 

I  will  abundantly  bless  her  provision: 

I  will  satisfy  her  poor  with  bread. 

Her  priests  also  will  I  clothe  with  salvation; 

And  her  saints  shall  shout  aloud  for  joy. 

There  will  I  make  the  horn  of  David  to  bud: 

I  have  ordained  a  lamp  for  mine  anointed. 

177 


[XIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

His  enemies  will  I  clothe  with  shame; 
But  upon  himself  shall  his  crown  flourish. 

—Psalm    132:13-18. 

This  psalm  is  one  of  the  "songs  of  ascent,"  probably  in- 
tended for  use  in  the  journey  to  the  annual  feast  at  Jeru^ 
salem.  Each  of  them  renews  the  impression  of  the  import- 
ance of  Zion  as  the  place  of  desire.  Zion  is  the  geographical 
incarnation  for  all  the  world  of  the  contact  of  God  with  men. 
The  new  social  order  is  not  to  make  less  but  rather  more  of 
Zion.  Religion  will  grow  to  be  a  broader,  deeper  reality, 
under  whose  influence  men  will  know  God  better.  That 
movement  is  alread}^  going  on.  The  faith  of  the  Church  in 
Christ,  so  far  from  making  God  less  real,  is  making  him 
mean  more.  Furthermore,  the  new  order  comes  by  use  of 
the  social  agencies  among  men.  New  agencies  will  develop, 
but  the  heart  of  them  will  be  the  familiar  religious  forces 
which  bind  men  to  God.  In  the  most  vivid  prefiguring  of 
the  final  social  order  in  the  Bible,  in  the  two  closing  chapters 
of  the  Revelation,  it  is  said  that  the  first  impression  of  the  city 
coming  down  out  of  heaven  from  God  is  the  clear  sense  of 
God  which  its  people  have.  He  dwells  among  them  and  is  their 
God  and  they  realize  themselves  to  'be  his  people  (Rev.  21 :  3). 
It  is  a  tradition  that  when  Dr.  Charles  Hodge  of  Princeton 
was  asked  what  was  the  most  attractive  word  about  heaven 
in  these  chapters,  he  said,  "  'And  his  servants  shall  serve 
him' — at  last!"  (Rev.  22:3).  But  that  is  not  reserved  for 
heaven ;  indeed,  it  is  given  as  one  of  the  facts  of  the  new 
order  which  is  being  formed  here  in  the  spirit  of  heaven. 
Whenever  any  man  helps  another  to  serve  God,  to  be  loyal 
to  all  that  Zion  means,  he  is  advancing  the  new  social  order 
by  that  much. 

COMMENT  FOR  THE  WEEK 

The  future  of  the  psalms  is  not  heaven,  but  transformed 
earth.  To  be  sure,  nothing  in  them  precludes  thought  of 
heaven  for  the  individual.  Probably  too  much  has  been  made 
of  the  supposed  lack  of  a  sense  of  a  future  state  in  the  Old 
Testament.  The  idea  appears  in  many  forms  actually  (16: 
10;  49:  15),  and  something  could  be  said  of  the  assurance  of 
personal  immortality  as  a  social  factor.    Life  cannot  look  the 

178 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-c] 

same  if  it  is  ended  at  seventy  years  instead  of  being  con- 
tinued in  another  state ;  as  college  would  not  be  the  same  if 
students  did  not  think  of  it  as  preparation  for  following  life. 
But  certainly  the  main  outlook  of  the  psalms  is  toward  a 
new  and  glorious  and  rectified  social  order  which  would  fit 
into  the  order  of  the  present  time,  growing  out  of  it  by  the 
operation  of  the  forces  of  righteousness.  The  minor  prophets 
lay  stress  on  social  wrongs  as  calling  for  personal  correction ; 
bad  men  must  cease  to  oppress.  The  psalmists  lay  larger 
stress  on  personal  wrongs  issuing  from  the  social  order 
which  must  be  corrected  by  changmg  the  order.  In  the  new 
order,  when  God  is  given  the  power  among  men  which  is  his 
by  right,  earth  will  yield  its  increase  and  righteousness  will 
be  the  rule  of  life  (85:12,  13).  Temporal  prosperity  and 
moral  vigor  will  go  together. 


In  the  minds  of  the  writers  there  is  no  shadow  of  doubt 
of  the  coming  of  this  better  time.  They  are  sometimes 
baffled  by  its  delay  and  wonder  at  the  slow  movement  of 
God  toward  its  coming  (74:10;  77:7-9),  but  even  then  they 
rebuke  themselves  for  anxiety  (37:1-17;  73:1-22;  77:10- 
13).  Short  views  may  discourage,  but  long  views  correct  the 
discouragement.  God  is  not  a  man  that  he  should  be  in 
haste.  There  were  baffling  cases  of  failure,  and  the  exile 
psalms  face  the  greatest  of  them  with  peculiar  courage.  They 
continue  to  be  sure  of  the  power  of  God.  Zion  was  destroyed, 
but  the  servants  of  God  took  pleasure  in  her  stones  and 
had  pity  on  her  dust  (102:13-17)  and  the  time  for  God's 
favor  was  sure  to  come  soon.  There  is  the  sarne  feeling  with 
which  Lowell  faced  the  crisis  of  his  times,  when  so  many 
institutions  and  hopes  were  destroyed : 

"Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger ;  history's  pages  but  record 
One  death  grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt  old  systems  and  the 

Word ; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold ;  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne, 
Yet    that    scafifold    sways    the    future,    and    behind    the    dim 

unknown 
Standeth   God  within  the  shadow,   keeping  watch   above   his 

own." 

There  are  conditions  in  our  own  times  that  call  for  strong 

179 


[XIII-c]        PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

faith.  Weak  men  can  lose  courage.  Professor  Giddings 
may  be  right  in  saying  that  "we  are  witnessing  today  beyond 
question  the  decay — perhaps  not  permanent,  but  at  any  rate 
the  decay — of  republican  institutions.  No  man  in  his  right 
mind  can  deny  it."  If  he  is  right,  then  our  faith  in  the  com- 
ing order  is  put  to  the  test,  for  most  of  us  in  America  think 
that  republican  institutions  mark  progress  toward  that  order. 
But  no  one  can  take  the  long  view,  from  the  times  of  the 
psalmists  to  our  own,  and  not.  see  the  emergence  of  condi- 
tions of  promise ;  and  no  one  can  keep  alive  his  trust  in  God 
and  his  plan  for  the  new  order  without  being  patient  to 
work  and  wait  for  its  coming.  Professor  McFadyen  says : 
"Whatever  the  fate  of  the*  earthly  monarchy  might  be,  Israel 
always  felt  herself  to  be  under  the  sovereignty  of  an  invis- 
ible king,  and  however  the  dreams  of  an  earthly  kingdom 
might  be  dashed  by  the  hard  facts,  the  kingdom  of  Jehovah 
was  sure  to  come."  ("Messages  of  the  Psalmists,"  p.  281.) 
The  coming  of  Christ  with  his  fuller  revelation  of  God  and 
his  purpose  for  the  world  ought  to  make  us  even  more  sure 
of   the  coming  victory. 

II 

Nor  was  this  reign  of  God  and  righteousness  to  be  counted 
merely  future.  It  had  already  begun.  The  Lord  reigneth 
and  that  may  mean  rejoicing  (97:1)  or  trembling  (99:1), 
but  the  fact  is  there  to  be  dealt  with.  He  is  King  over  nature 
(29:10)  and  over  bad  men  (2:1-5),  indeed  he  rules  over 
all  (103:  19).  This  is  a  basal  fact  with  which  their  thinking 
begins.  WJiQt  is  needed  is  not  something  new  but  more  of 
the  best  that  now  is. 

Moreover,  anyone  who  will  look  carefully  enough  will  see 
the  nev/  order  coming  in  the  present  apparent  chaos.  It 
appears  in  the  order  of  nature.  The  heavens  declare  God's 
glory  and  also  his  righteousness  (19:1;  97:6).  His  right- 
eousness finds  a  good  illustration  in  the  mountains  {2,6:6), 
the  most  enduring  element  in  the  nature  which  the  writers 
knew.  It  is  as  fixed  as  they  are.  Dr.  Newman  vSmyth,  in 
his  book,  "The  Meaning  of  Personal  Life,"  has-  urged  that 
nature  shows  signs  of  a  program  which  it  is  carrying  out. 
"The  electrons  have  come  to  do  something — the}^  are  here 
that  more  may  be."  "The  earth  in  its  final  forming  has  the 
appearance    of    some    vast    assembling    room    of    well    fitted 

180 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-c] 

parts."  He  finds  the  purpose  in  the  emergence  of  personal 
life  which  gives  nature  its  real  meaning.  Everything  in 
nature  has  a  forward  look,  is  working  out  a  program.  The 
program  is  from  God.  It  is  he  who  has  given  the  earth  to 
men  (115:16).  For  a  time  we  grew  so  interested  in  the 
history  of  the  physical  earth  that  we  had  no  concern  for  its 
future,  but  we  are  finding  that  the  two  points  of  view  are  not 
contradictory.  Whatever  push  nature  has  from  the  past  is 
toward  something  in  the  future.  We  may  be  wholly  unsure 
what  that  future  thing  is,  but  we  can  join  the  psalm.ists  in 
being  sure  that  since  nature  is  so  much  the  expression  of  law 
it  must  carry  with  it  an  assurance  of  the  righteousness  of 
the  God  whose  it  is. 

Also  it  appears  in  every  passing  victory  for  righteousness. 
Whenever  a  bad  scheme  is  thwarted  or  a  good  one  advanced, 
the  new  order. is  helped  forward.  Clouds  and  darkness  may 
be  round  about  Him,  but  righteousness  and  justice  are  the 
very  foundation  of  his  throne  (97:2).  Many  of  the  strong 
assertions  of  the  sure  prosperity  of  the  righteous  rest  on 
the  assurance  that  a  fundamentally  right  order  exists  under- 
neath the  chaotic  social  order  we  now  experience.  Only 
once  in  a  while  does  that  fundamental  order  crop  out,  as  a 
ledge  of  rock  thrusts  itself  up  through  the  soil  at  points,  but 
when  it  does  appear,  moral  beings  may  take  heart.  Emer- 
son's essay  on  "Compensation"  was  written  after  hearing  a 
sermon  in  which  it  was  argued  that  there  must  be  a  future 
life  to  provide  a  moral  balance  for  this  life.  On  the  con- 
trary, Emerson  contended  that  Hfe  even  here  is  morally 
balanced.  Both  the  preacher  and  Emerson  had  truth  on 
their  sides.  Fundamentally  the  moral  order  underlies  even 
the  chaos  of  today,  but  its  full  expression  waits  for  the 
future — here  as  soon  as  we  will  give  it  chance,  beyond  this 
life  in  any  case.  Even  the  remote  heathen  have  had  reason 
to  know  that  righteousness  is  God's  law  (98:2),  and  little  by 
little  nations  not  among  the  chosen  ones  are  moving  toward 
God  (72:9-11;  87:4;  68:31).  Even  now  it  is  better  with 
the  man  who  is  right  and  generous  and  helpful  than  with 
men  of  the  old  order  who  seek  their  own  interest  first  (112). 

Progress  actually  has  been  made.  The  good  old  days  have 
something  to  say  for  themselves,  but  not  so  much  as  the 
later  daj^s  whose  comipg  they  helped  along.  The  story  of 
the   spread   of   the  new   order,   hinting   of   its    further   lines, 

181 


[XIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

has  been  told  many  times.  We  cannot  he  blind  to  evils  and 
fool  ourselves  into  thinking  that  the  social  order  is  what  it 
ought  to  be,  but  we  must  not  be  blind  to  the  forces  for  good 
which  are  at  work,  overcoming  evil  and  bringing  in  a  king- 
dom, which  will  transform  human  society.  Kaftan  spoke  well 
of  Jesus  when  he  said  that  only  a  paradox  could  state  his 
message :  "The  future  salvation  has  become  present,  and  yet 
has  not  ceased  to  be  future." 

Ill 

For  we  need  to  go  on  to  say  that  though  the  new  social 
order  is  emerging  in  the  pi;esent,  its  fulness  waits  for  the 
future.  For  the  psalmists  it  waited  for  the  coming  of  a 
King  who  could  bring  it  in.  The  King  has  come  and  has 
left  a  program  for  bringing  it  in  which  we  are  trying  to 
execute.  We  say  much  of  loyalty  to  the  past  and  something 
of  loyalty  to  our  own  times  and  their  demands  on  us.  We 
do  not  say  enough  of  the  largest  loyalty  demanded  of  us — 
loyalty  to  the  future.  Yet  there  is  no  loyalty  to  which  we 
owe  more  passionate  allegiance  than  this.  If  we  are  faced 
with  the  question  of  the  politician  who  was  urged  to  a  large 
plan  for  the  sake  of  posterity,  "What  has  posterity  ever  done 
for  us?"  we  have  a  ready  answer.  Posterity  has  given  us 
our  greatest  opportunity.  It  has  made  it  worth  while  to 
attempt  big  things,  to  lay  plans  greater  than  we  can  ever 
execute,  to  design  programs  which  are  worthy  of  our  rational 
natures,  in  the  assurance  that  there  will  be  men  to  take  up 
the  task  where  we  lay  it  down. 

Life  is  a  big  relay  race  where  generations  touch  hands 
before  the  first  stops  and  the  second  goes  on.  President  King 
says  that  each  new  generation  asks  of  the  former  one  three 
questions :  What  are  you  trying  to  do  ?  How  far  have  you 
got?  What  can  I  do  to  help?  As  a  young  man,  is  that  the 
way  you  think  of  life?  Do  you  have  a  sense  of  obligation 
to  the  generation  whose  work  you  are  taking  upf  You  will 
find  as  you  come  to  the  end  of  your  generation  that  part  of 
your  reassurance  will  be  in  the  next  generation  whose  young 
men  will  take  up  the  great  projects  where  you  leave  off. 
Posterity  demands  a  firm  loyalty.  We  have  no  right  not  to 
plan  for  better  things.  The  generation  following  must  hear 
good  stories  from  us  if  we  do  our  share   (48:13;   102:18). 

182 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-c] 

One  generation  must  tell  of  the  victories  of  God  and  his 
advancing  order  to  another  (145:4).  The  coming  gen- 
eration makes  worth  while  the  strain  it  takes  to  change  a  bad 
social  custom  or  to  introduce  some  fine  new  observance. 
It  is  not  enough  to  believe  that  the  new  social  order  is  com- 
ing; the  great  thing  is  to  live  our  lives  for  the  sake  of  its 
coming.  Despairing  of  it  or  turning  away  from  it  for  per- 
sonal profit  is  the  deepest  treason.  Lowell's  poem  on  "The 
Present  Crisis"  goes  on : 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties ;  Time  makes  ancient  good 
uncouth ; 

They  must  upward  still,  and  onward,  who  would  keep  abreast 
of   Truth; 

Lo,  before  us  gleam  her  campfires,  we  ourselves  must  Pil- 
grims be, 

Launch  our  Mayflower  and  steer  boldly  through  the  desper- 
ate winter  sea. 

Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with  the  Past's  blood-rusted 
key." 

Some  one  looked  at  Lincoln  as  he  sat,  "a  tall  bony  figure, 
devoid  of  grace,  a  countenance  almost  redeemed  from  plain- 
ness by  two  kindly  blue  eyes,  but  overshadowed  by  the  dark 
problems  of  the  moment,"  and  after  he  had  gone,  remarked, 
"Helpless  Honesty!"  "As  if  honesty  could  ever  be  helpless!" 
comments  Mrs.  Howe. 

Yet  the  real  assurance  of  the  coming  of  this  better  social 
order  does  not  rise  out  of  what  we  see  in  nature  or  in  history 
or  in  present  movements.  Those  might  all  be  dead  against  it, 
and  still  we  might  have  the  assurance  if  we  were  like  these 
psalmists.  For  their  assurance  is  in  God  and  his  power  and 
purpose.  The  promise  on  which  they  based  it  rested  in  God.'s 
character  and  love  (89:24-37)  and  took  frank  account  of  the 
weakness  of  the  men  through  whom  that  character  had  to 
work  in  the  world.  But  a  ^ood  God  with  good  men  could 
not  fail  to  make  a  good  order  (125).  Much  of  their  hope 
gathered  around  a  central  Figure  (45  and  72),  but  it  saw  him 
drawing  nations  to  himself.  We  need  not  suppose  that  they 
had  any  clear  vision  of  Christ,  for  they  may  be  of  the  group 
of  which  Peter  speaks  (I  Peter  i:ii)  who  felt  more  than 
they  understood  as  they  wrote.  But  when  that  central  Figure 
did  appear  it  is  noticeable  that  their  phrases  fitted  him  with 

183 


[XIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

fine  nicety.  It  is  from  the  2nd  psalm  that  we  get  our  two 
principal  titles  for  our  Lord :  in  the  second  verse  he  is 
called  the  "anointed,"  which  in  the  Greek  form  is  the  word 
Christ;  in  the  seventh  verse  he  is  called  the  Son.  Peter 
put  the  two  together  in  his  famous  confession  which  so 
touched  the  heart  of  Christ:  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  Hving  God"  (Matt.  i6:  i6).  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
that  there  are  more  quotations  from  the  psalms  in  the  New 
Testament  than  from  any  other  part  of  the  Bible.  They 
express  the  Christian  expectation — assured  victory  through 
the  power  of  Christ. 

IV 

Few  details  of  the  future  social  order  are  given.  Three  are 
emphasized  frequently.  It  will  be  a  time  and  condition  of 
righteousness,  peace,  and  prosperity.  The  coming  of  the 
Lord  will  be  to  judge  the  earth  with  righteousness  and  the 
peoples  with  equity  (98:9).  There  will  be  an  end  of  oppres- 
sion (72:4,  14)  and  men  will  receive  their  just  dues  (149: 
7-9).  Whatever  unfairness  exists  in  the  present  order  is  a 
hindrance  to  the  new  order.  Unequal  distribution  of  profits 
of  industry,  unfair  and  cruel  treatment  of  children,  oppres- 
sion of  weaker  nations,  withholding  of  justice  from  accused 
criminals,  arbitrary  administration  of  law,  and  all  else  of 
the  sort  must  be  worked  out  of  our  social  order  by  the  com- 
ing in  of  the  -new  order.  Whoever  loves  the  new  social 
order  must  take  his  stand  against  all  such  unrighteousness. 
To  be  unloving,  unfair,  unjust,  to  take  selfish  advantage,  to 
exploit  a  weaker  person  for  one's  profit,  and  yet  to  pretend 
to  want  the  coming  of  the  new  order  is  to  live  a  lie. 

Because  it  is  a  reign  of  righteousness,  it  will  be  a  reign  of 
peace.  Most  of  the  psalms  indicate  at  some  point  a  sense  of 
danger,  or  disturbance  at  least.  Life  is  lived  in  the  presence 
of  peril.  But  all  the  trouble  comes  out  of  the  evil  of  other 
men  or  else  out  of  one's  own  eyl.  If  that  were  once  taken 
away  and  God's  voice  could  be  heard,  he  would  be  speaking 
peace  to  men  (85:8;  29:11).  '  The  logic  of  that  is  clear 
enough.  If  two  nations  can  be  brought  to  take  the  same  atti- 
tude of  genuine  loyalty  to  God  and  his  rule  of  righteousness, 
there  is  no  room  for  controversy  between  them.  The  new 
social  order  will  make  no  provision  for  war  on  a  large  scale 
as  between  nations,  nor  on  a  small   scale  as  between  social 

184 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-c] 

groups.  Peace  will  come  on  earth  among  men  of  goodwill, 
men  in  whom  a  righteous,  loving  God  can  be  well  pleased 
(Luke  2:14).  When  we  "^foster  national  hatreds,  or  racial 
oppositions,  or  encourage  feelings  of  hatred  between  classes 
of  men,  or  slur  the  merits  of  other  men,  magnifying  our 
own,  we  hinder  the  new  order. 

We  must  not  minimize  the  place  of  prosperity  in  the 
better  social  order.  The  psalms  make  much  of  it.  They 
thought  of  the  earth  as  a  kind  of  mirror  which  smiled  when 
God  smiled  and  frowned  when  he  frowned.  They  had  no 
occasion  to  think  of  the  intricate  social  organization  that 
enters  into  our  present  life.  That  would  have  deepened 
their  realization  of  the  intimate  relation  between  a  righteous 
social  .order  and  the  comfort  and  prosperity  of  the  people 
who  live  in  it.  Better  houses  will  not  necessarily  make  better 
people,  and  rascals  are  quite  as  likely  to  live  on  boulevards 
as  anywhere  else.  But  there  is  nothing  in  a  bad  house  that 
makes  a  fine  soul  and  nothing  in  a  good  house  that  makes  a 
coarse  soul.  There  is  better  chance  for  a  fine  soul  to  be 
its  best  self  in  a  good  house,  and  bad  houses  tend  to  coarsen 
souls.  Plenty  of  good  food  is  the  natural  outcome  of  an 
abundant,  rich  world  Hke  this.  Right  industrial  conditions 
should  make  it  possible  for  every  man  doing  his  share  to 
have  the  returns  which  he  and  his  dependents  need.  A 
sound  social  order  will  provide  care  for  the  incapable  and 
will  put  aspiration  into  the  hearts  of  the  indolent,  whereby 
they  take  their  place  in  the  program  of  the  whole,  and  will 
reward  the  active  with  place  in  the  group  beyond  oppression 
and  poverty.  Economics  has  been  a  "dreary  science,"  but  if 
it  is  a  study  of  the  w^ys  whereby  the  new  social  order  can 
come,  it  may  cease  to  be  dreary. 

V 

Meanwhile,  the  new  social  order  is  to  come  by  the  power 
of  God  working  in  men  (101:1-8;  110:1-3),  men  who  will 
behave  themselves  wisely  in  right  ways,  who  will  take  God's 
side  against  wrong,  who  will  offer  themselves  willingly  in 
the  day  of  God's  power.  If  we  will  not  be  that  kind  of 
men,  then  other  men  will  have  to  carry  us  as  additional 
loads  as  they  go  on  toward  the  .  better  future.  But  if 
we  are   that  kind   of   men  we   help   the  enterprise   forward, 

185 


[XIII-c]       PSALMS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

however  much  or  little  we  seem  to  be  able  to  do.  There  is 
even  something  in  the  word  of  Bishop  Blougram  which  we 
need  to  face : 

"When  all's   done  and   said. 
Like  you  this  Christianity  or  not? 
It  may  be  false,  but  will  you  wish  it  true? 
Has  it  your  vote  to  be  so  if  it  can?" 

But  rugged  old  Carlyle  is  better  at  the  end  of  his  lecture  "The 
Hero  as  Priest,"  when  he  is  describing  John  Knox  and  his 
hope  for  Scotland  and  the  world,  that  the  petition,  "Thy 
Kingdom  come,"  should  not  be  any  longer  an  empty  word. 
The  regent  Murray  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  called  it  "a 
devout  imagination"  to  think  that  a  social  order  might  be 
formed  wherein  God  would  rule,  but  John  Knox  was  not 
restrained  from  giving  his  life  to  advancing  the  purpose. 
The  lecture  closes :  "How  far  such  Ideals  can  ever  be  intro- 
duced into  Practice,  and  at  what  point  our  impatience  with 
their  non-introduction  ought  to  begin,  is  always  a  question. 
I  think  we  may  say  safely,  Let  them  introduce  themselves  as 
far  as  they  can  contrive  to  do  it !  If  they  are  the  true  faith 
of  men,  all  men  ought  to  be  more  or  less  impatient  always 
where  they  are  not  found  introduced.  There  will  never  be 
wanting  Regent  Murrays  enough  to  shrug  their  shoulders, 
and  say,  'A  devout  imagination !'  We  will  praise  the  Hero- 
priest  rather  who  does  what  is  in  him  to  bring  them  in ;  and 
wears  out  in  toil,  calumny,  contradiction,  a  noble  life,  to 
make  a  God's  Kingdom  of  this  Earth,  The  Earth  will  not 
become  too  godlike."  The  psalmists  were  more  sure  of  the 
outcome  than  was  Carlyle.  The  fulfilment  of  the  hope  waits 
for  men  enough  who  will  live  for  it.  They  cannot  do  it  in 
their  own  power,  but  they  can  live  in  the  strength  and  joy 
of  the  vision  of  the  kingdom  of  the  earth  becoming  the  king- 
dom of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ  (Rev.  11:15),  mean- 
while bearing  the  witness  of  a  changed  life  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth. 

SUGGESTIONS    FOR    FURTHER    THOUGHT    AND 

STUDY 

Make  a  list  of  the  forces  or  movements  now  visible  which 
seem   to   you   to   indicate   the    advance    of    the    social    order 

186 


FORECAST  OF  A  SOCIAL  ORDER     [XIII-cl 

towards  God's  purpose  for  it,  at  least  in  the  three  traits  of 
righteousness,    peace,    and   prosperity. 

Think  out  some  safeguards  against  such  emphasis  on 
service  for  a  new  present  order  that  one  loses  interest  in  the 
eternal  phases  of  human  lives. 

This  chapter  is  written  in  full  view  of  the  fact  that  equally 
earnest  Christian  believers  differ  as  to  the  method  of  the 
coming  of  the  ultimate  social  order.  Some  expect  it  to  be 
developed  gradually  out  of  the  present  order,  though  doubt- 
less with  many  forward  leaps,  under  the  power  of  Christ. 
Others  expect  it  to  be  inaugurated  by  his  personal  return  to 
earth.  Consider  whether  difference  here  should  affect  our 
duty  in  the  present  social  order. 


187 


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